The scarcity of English gold plate other than snuffboxes and freedom boxes was well documented by the scholar Arthur Grimwade in 1951, when he listed only about eighty objects dating from 1507-1830. However, this spoon and its set was not included, which suggests that more surviving examples may come to light. The spoons each have a shell-shaped bowl, decorated on the outside and plain on the inside.

The 18th century saw an emerging class of rich citizens who used their acquired wealth to indulge a passion for beautiful objects. The Renaissance tradition of the treasury or Schatzkammer, a special room for displaying exotic artefacts, continued in the 18th and 19th centuries. Other types of display included presentation plate, often of solid gold, which in the 18th century was worth about twenty times the value of silver.

Sir Arthur Gilbert and his wife Rosalinde formed one of the world's great decorative art collections, including silver, mosaics, enamelled portrait miniatures and gold boxes. Arthur Gilbert donated his extraordinary collection to Britain in 1996.