Jason with the Golden Fleece (Thorvaldsen) from the 3rd century BC depicts Jason removing the Golden Fleece from the sacred tree. Thorvaldsen's work was initially executed for the Copenhagen Academy to demonstrate his progress; a marble version was subsequently commissioned by Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art patron. When Hope's eventual heirs dispersed his collection at Deepdene, Surrey, in 1917, it was acquired by Copenhagen's Thorvaldsen Museum at auction. Considered to be Thorvaldsen's breakthrough work, the statue's theme stems from a drawing of "Jason and the Golden Fleece" by Asmus Jacob Carstens but the esthetic of the nude figure is also inspired by the Apollo Belvedere
Order of the Golden Fleece rescued the fleece's reputation by identifying it instead with the fleece of Gideon that received the dew of Heaven. The badge of the Order, in the form of a sheepskin, was suspended from a jewelled collar of firesteels in the shape of the letter B, for Burgundy, linked by flints; with the motto "Pretium Laborum Non Vile" ("No Mean Reward for Labours") engraved on the front of the central link, and Philip's motto "Non Aliud" ("I will have no other") on the back (non-royal knights of the Golden Fleece were forbidden to belong to any other order of knighthood). With