Bernard Cuzner is an important figure in the history of silversmithing in Birmingham. Trained in the city's silver manufacturing industry and at the School for Jewellers and Silversmiths in Vittoria Street, he was the head of the Department of Metalwork at Birmingham School of Art in Margaret Street from 1910 until 1942. He was a passionate believer in the Arts and Crafts tradition of hand-working, and was greatly influenced by other Birmingham silversmiths such as Arthur Gaskin.

This exquisite little box is a good example of precise and delicate Birmingham Arts and Crafts work. Although it has a hint of art deco and the jazz age about its design, the fluting, wirework and use of other decorative materials such as ivory, shell and coral, all look back to techniques of the medieval silversmith.