Gilt silver with niello, 13.77 grams, 42.17 mm. Circa 10th century AD. An unusual openwork mount in the form of a hollow spherical feature with incised beast-head decoration on the upper and lower surfaces, the eyes circular and the back of the head with incised crescents, probably representing fish-scales. The mouth of the creature gapes open to engage with a convex-sided feature with an openwork centre, into which four pairs of comma-shaped elements intrude; these alternate in appearance between chip-carved and gilded and those with notched leaves in niello inlay. Similar notched leaf decoration is present on the outer faces of the edge bars. At the lower end of the piece the convex bars converge onto a disc with hemispherical bulbs on the sides. The upper bulb is hollow at the rear. The bifacial nature of the decoration indicates that the piece was intended to be viewed from both sides, and the hollow bulb could accommodate a swivel mechanism; use as a tag or handle is possible, for example for an æstel or reading pointer. Stylistically, the beast-head has parallels in a gilded spouted jug presented to the British Museum in 1897 by Sir A.W. Franks which is now considered one of the earliest examples of Late Saxon Winchester Style metalwork, dating from the early 10th century AD. The openwork foliage centre is also parallelled by a number of tongue-shaped strap ends found in Winchester. Reference: Backhouse, J., Turner, D.H. and Webster, L. The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, London, 1984 items 72, 82, 83. Extremely fine condition, much gilding remaining. Provenance: from an old English collection, found Continental Europe.