Schaffhausen onyx
[2] The oval, engraved 9.5 by 8 cm (3.7 by 3.1 in) high relief depicts a goddess, either Pax Augusta or perhaps Felicitas, standing barefoot and leaning against a plinth with a cornucopia in her left arm and a caduceus in her right.
The whole stone piece, measuring 15.5 by 13 cm (6.1 by 5.1 in), is now dated to the first half of the 1st century CE, while the setting is thought to have been made around 1240.
[5] The figure's face is in profile, with her head and eyes turned slightly downward and her short hair pulled back.
The cameo has a later gold setting with 54 gems, semi-precious stones and also pearls; these are mainly sapphire, turquoise, garnet and lapis lazuli, of which three are missing.
The back consists of a silver-gilt plate, on which a standing figure, possibly a knight, was engraved "in a long, pleated house dress with cloak and breastplate, a floral wreath on the head and a falcon on the gloved left hand".
The inscription reads ✠COMITIS LVDIWICI DE VROBURC, or '(possession) of Count Ludwig of Froburg', with the initial cross as an invocation.
[4] The representation as a falconer would suit Frederick II, whose territory included Sicily, because he owned falcons and wrote the book De arte venandi cum avibus ('On the art of hunting with birds'), but probably depicts Count Louis (or Ludwig) III or his son, Count Louis IV.
It is also possible that the engravings were the work of successive generations: the falconer as the oldest design element would then have emerged under Emperor Frederick II, and the inscription under Count Louis III or IV.
In this case, the person depicted might represent the then owner Frederick II,[6] despite the inscription's implication that it was the likeness of one of the two Counts.
[8] In 1279, the cameo—including the gold mount and the engraving on the back—came into the possession of the widow of Henry III, Herr von Rappoltstein [de], by gift or inheritance.
It may be compared to works of sacred art as well as to the so-called Wettinger Prachtkreuz or processional cross from the abbey of Wettingen-Mehrerau, which has the same external decoration.
