John Paul Cooper, a leading figure in the British Arts and Crafts movement, was an architect, designer, and metalsmith. He apprenticed to London architect John D. Sedding, a strong proponent of the ideas of art critic John Ruskin, and Henry Wilson, an architect with interests in craft, especially metalwork and jewelry. Cooper joined the “Birmingham Group” and served as head of the Metalwork Department of the Birmingham Municipal Art School (1901–1906). Inspired by medieval and Celtic designs, this airy and graceful jewel conveys a sense of refined opulence. Cooper worked his designs from a selection of stones, rather than creating a design and then finding suitable gems. He commented that stones should “play on one another as two notes of music." Cooper’s chief craftsman, Lorenzo Colarosi, spent 273 hours making this brooch. Copper employed others to fabricate his jewelry designs, although he sometimes did the chasing and repoussé, seen in the leaves and tendrils in this brooch.