A 19th-century print of microscopic sea creatures, one of which, was a flat grid which presumably just floats around until someone eats it.

Much of my deep imagination lies under the sea – everything there seems quite alien and fascinating. In a way, using this cell creature as a lid to a box is as far as you can get from the sea until you see the refracted gold square wires through the rock crystal: not quite what it would be like looking through glass but may be more like looking through water.

We found a piece of rock crystal and had it cut to size, this was to form the base of the box. The walls were made from sheet silver and 18 carat square gold wire was soldered to it and bent round to form claws to hold the rock crystal in place. They were also to hold the lid which fits both ways (no mean feat). We enlarged the cell grid to the correct size and pierced it out from a sheet of silver using a jeweller's saw. The lid was then plated with 18 carat gold.

Rock crystal; 18 carat gold; silver