Cloister work - with depiction of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

The composition painted on oval copper plate represents St. Elisabeth of the Arpad dynasty standing in princely dress, before a golden back-ground, wearing an ermine cloak and wearing a crown. She is putting a coin in the plate offered to her by a half-naked beggar sitting before her.

Zoltan Szilardfy traces back the composition to the altarpiece of Daniel Gran (Vienna, Karlskirche) following which it was often used portraits of saints. It was a habit of the period to represent on the portraits the merciful and charitable Hungarian princess as Maria Theresia. Several engravings were made after the coronation picture of Maria Theresia painted by Daniel Schmidelly (1705-1779) in 1742. Most probably an engraving of this type might have been the model for the figures of St. Elisabeth in this case.

The painted copper plate is framed by a so called polion ornament, which is a complicated decoration of coloured wax and ground bead with coloured silk and twisted metal threads including the relics of the saints. Above the bone pieces in tulle, inscriptions on parchment bands show the names of the saints. The inscriptions of the bands are: in the four corners — MARTYRIS, below — S. MODESTI / S. PROSPERI, above — S. VICTORIS / S. PHILOTEI: In the festoon girdling the copper plate — S. URBANI / S. AMANDAE / S. JUSTINAE / S. DILECTI / S. VICTORIAE / S. MODESTI / S. CAN- DIDAE / S. HONORATI