We were in Greece visiting Eleusis, just outside Athens, and I was sitting and looking at a large roundel of Marcus Aurelius surrounded by laurel leaves. At home I had a lava stone cameo, a bust of a woman, much weathered by time. In my head she became Mrs Aurelius and I surrounded her with vegetation (we call them weeds as a shortcut so that my translators know immediately what I mean) and placed her on top of a column.

Her name was Faustina and she bore 13 children in 30 years of marriage.

Silver sheet and wire; 19th-century lava stone cameo