Relief

The hoof-shaped silver plate shows a lively war scene, depicting Frederick Barbarossa on horseback, in the centre, struggling with his enemies. There are dead soldiers with horses at the bottom of the scene, with an inscription engraved on a shield beside them: BATALLA: DE: ICONIUM / FREDERICO. BARBAROIA / MCXC. The top side of the composition show another engraved inscription, on the sword of a warrior: FRIEDRICH I. The technical virtuosity of the highly chased scene is enhanced in an interesting way: the stirrup of the leader was soldered separately and then applied on the relief later. In the goldsmith's mark book of Elemér Kőszeghy, issued in 1936, the author attributed the relief to József Szentpéteri, made between 1855 and 1862 however, this hypothesis has been doubted recently. On the Szentpéteri exhibition organized in the Budapest Historical Museum in 1981, this object was not exhibited and was mentioned in the catalogue only as a piece of a doubted origin.