Precious metals

This silver gilt chalice was an offering to the Monastery of São Miguel de Refoios from Dom Gueda Mendes, and is the oldest piece in the precious metalwork collection of the Machado de Castro National Museum.

It is a masterpiece with a profuse decorative scheme, unparalleled in Portugal. The cup features Christand the Apostles, framed by perfectly formed vaulted arches and identified in the inscription above.

On the base we can see the symbols of the Four Evangelists.

This exquisit reliquary belonged to the Saint Queen Isabel. Apart from its value as a heraldic symbol, it also conveys a codified vision of arts, in which everything - materials, shapes, and colours - is symbolic.

This reliquary of the Holy Cross combines the excellence of its different materials: coral, silver gilt and enamels.

Our Lady and Child is an exceptional item in collections of Portuguese medieval metalwork, where free-standing figurative sculptures are rarely to be found. It belonged to the Saint Queen Isabel.

As 14th century female fashion and jewellery are finely represented, this sculpture also serves as a priceless historical document.

Processional Cross was paid for with the silver which Bishop Fernando Coutinho left in his will to the Cathedral for this purpose. It is the most ostentatious piece from the 15th century of this collection.

It is a good example of the accentuated verticality of this period. The plant decoration presages the excessive naturalistic ornamentation that would find favour during the Manueline period.

Late Gothic art united the ogival form, as in the cathedral-like architectural miniatures with Renaissance motifs. The exuberant Manueline gilded silver chalice belonged to the Monastery of St. Clara.

Late Gothic art with Renaissance decoration inspired by Greco-Roman art, as seen in the columns and medallions with busts depicting the Prophets of the Old Testament.

This magnificent solid gold set was given to the Cathedral of Coimbra by the Bishop Dom João Soares, whose coat-of-arms appears on the base of the chalice.

Designed along the lines of the rules of the Renaissance, the chalice displays such decorations of Flemish Mannerist engravings. The paten is decorated with scenes from the life of Christ.

This reliquary-cross, held up by a pair of intensely naturalistic crab claws, is associated with an episode in the life of St. Francis Xavier, when he was on a mission in the Malacca Islands.

During a storm at sea, the saint lowered the cross he had with him under the waves, upon which the seas calmed themselves. However, the cross was lost. Some time later, when St. Francis was walking along the beach, a crab gave him back his cross.