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This is a particularly magnificent medal, don't you think? Only a very small number were struck in gold – just fifteen in all. It was created by the Danish medallist Magnus Gustav Arbien, clearly a master of his craft.

The occasion was the 300th anniversary of the House of Oldenburg's accession to the throne of Denmark. On the first of September 1448, the Danish Council of the Realm had elected Count Christian of Oldenburg as the new King of Denmark. He was crowned on the 28th of October 1449 – the first in a long line of Danish kings from the House of Oldenburg.

In the centre of the medal, on a pedestal, we see a bust of the reigning monarch – in 1749, that was King Frederick the Fifth. He's surrounded by the portraits of his eleven predecessors. The Latin circumscription is a quotation from Virgil's Aeneid, which translates as:

 

"I appoint to these neither period nor boundary of empire"

 

In Virgil, this is a prophecy addressed to the Romans by the god Jupiter. Here, it expresses a wish that the House of Oldenburg will long rule over Denmark.

This gold medal and the two pieces next to it on the left were incorporated into the Saxon Elector's Münzkabinett as early as 1750. They were a gift from King Frederick the Fifth of Denmark to Electoral Prince Friedrich Christian of Saxony, who was responsible for the coin collection at the time. The gift was a very generous one – that's obvious from the tiny number of gold medals struck. It's a clear indication of the very close relationship between the two ruling houses – a connection established by many intermarriages from the 15th century onwards.