estimate the extraordinary value attached to such objects at the present day by the fact that a jewel very similar to this last was sold at Messrs. Christie's Rooms in the autumn of 1903 for no less a sum than £6,500. The hull of this jewel is identical with that at Vienna, but figures of Antony and Cleopatra, finely executed, though somewhat out of proportion to the rest, here take the place of the couple beneath the awning; while instead of being hung by chains (as is suitable to this form of pendant) the jewel is backed by a composition of scroll- and strap-work, characteristic of German and Flemish work of the second half of the sixteenth century. A comparison with contemporary designs clearly associates these two objects with the well-known set of engravings for pendent jewels published by Hans Collaert at Antwerp in 1581 (Pl. XXXIII). Another version of this jewel is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich. The figures are the same as on the Vienna jewel, but the vessel is in the form of a fish. [161] Cf. "Une petite nef d'or, estoffée de tout son appareil" (Invent. of Mary, dau. of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and wife of Maximilian I. Lille: _Archives du Nord_, VIII, p. 171.) Just as the great gem cabinets preserve pendants whose jewel-work is confined to richly decorated frames, so there exist a considerable number of mounted medals, which must be looked for in collections of coins and medals, among which they are classed on account of the presumed preponderating importance of their centre-pieces. These pendent gold medals (_Gnadenmedaillen_), with beautiful jewelled and enamelled mounts, occasionally hung with pearls and suspended by chains from ornate cartouches, were much in favour in Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were given by noble personages, whose portraits were figured on them, as presents and as marks of special distinction. Many examples, as is to be expected, are to be found in the coin cabinets of Munich and Berlin; while others are preserved in the more important public and private collections of jewellery. These medallions, as was natural, were frequently made in duplicate, and the Waddesdon Bequest, and the Salting and Pierpont Morgan collections each contain a jewel, dated 1612, of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria (1558-1620), in an open-worked border of enamelled scrolls interrupted by four shields of arms, and suspended by three chains, united above by an oval escutcheon with the arms of Austria on one side and the cross of the Teutonic order on the other. The Victoria and Albert Museum has an enamel-mounted medal of Albert VI, Duke of Bavaria (1584-1666), a facsimile of which, hung with a single instead of trilobed pearl, is in the Munich cabinet.