Order of the Golden Fleece

 
The depiction of the bird (the crest) on the Golden Fleece Coat of Arms in The Hague is different from that in the fifteenth-century sources, but corresponds with the sixteenth-century depiction of the crest of a distant cousin (Claude of Vergy, Golden Fleece Coat of Arms Ghent 1559). Another thing that is striking is that the registration of the Golden Fleece Coat of Arms in The Hague by Aernout of Buchel (1610) shows a red bird. During the SRAL treatment no traces of red paint were found.

The SRAL treatment did unveil the so-called damascening (decorative line pattern) in the red field of the shield. An analysis of the photographs made of this Golden Fleece Coats of Arms in the twentieth century shows that this decoration had been repainted before 1909, as a result of which it was hidden from the viewers’ eyes for a long time.

Since damascening only had a decorative function to liven up a large field, it can be assumed that there were no heraldic or political reasons to repaint the original damascening.