This small copper medallion is painted on both sides with portraits of husband and wife. They were acquired by Prince Albert as ‘Geo. D of Saxony Regent of Flanders & his wife’. George, Duke of Saxony, was not the Regent of Flanders, but he was the Governor of Friesland, which may explain this description. In 1496 he married 1496 married Barbara Jagiellon (1478-1534), daughter of the King of Poland; the couple had ten children. The Duke is shown with the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece which he joined in 1530. He doesn’t seem to be sixty years old and his costume seems more appropriate for the 1560s than the 1530s. It is possible however that this is a later idealised image which confuses fashions of the epochs and the ages of the sitters.

The recto contains a seated portrait of the Duke, facing slightly to the right, pointing upwards with left hand; wearing dark costume and Order of the Golden Fleece. The verso contains his wife at three-quarter length, seated; facing half to the left, holding a prayerbook in left hand.