Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 10. (Budapest, 1991)
TOMPOS Lilla: A dolmányszabás módosulása a 16. századtól a 18. századig
structing the pattern is different (Plate 15). As in the earlier example, the left front is aligned with the edge of the fabric, the right front is set by the line of buttons. Unlike in the case of the seventeenth-century model, here the shoulder is highest at the neck, in the same way as today. This point is the centre of the subsidiary circle. The method of constructing the back has changed as well. The length is not calculated from the radius, but defined by the segment of the circle drawn from the intersection of the neckline and the centre of the back. Due to the new way of cutting, the skirt has also changed. It is loose on the two sides, shorter, and the pleats form a bell-shape. The fashion of wearing shorter skirted dolmans was not confined to a certain age ; the young Pál Esterházy wears a short dolman, known as a kurtánka, on a portrait painted in 1655, and Imre Thököly had a similar one (Plate 15). 41 Studying the alterations made in the cut of dolmans from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, a continuity can be observed. With the help of surveying these changes, the various exhibits can be arranged into a sequence. The crimson felt dolman is the oldest; in her description of the acquisition, Mária Ember dates it as late sixteenth-century. 42 The high upright collar and the long back confirm this supposition. 43 The green felt dolman was made at the end of the century, as seen from the lower neck and shorter back. 44 The child's dolman with the tapered back was probably made around the turn of the seventeenth century. The black dolman of the Esterházy collection and the mauve dolman of the Bánffys were almost certainly created in the middle of the seventeenth century. Similarly to the Hungarian fashion, the change in the cut of the collar can be observed in the costume of Polish public administration officials. 45 Inventories of the Topkapi Saray from the same period also mention caftans with tall, upright collars. 46 A black velvet coat is traditionally associated with mourning. In the Esterházy Treasury, the oldest one was probably the blackvelvet dolman, which may have belonged to Palatine Miklós Esterházy. However, in this case the black colour does not indicate mourning, but the solemn ceremoniousness of Spanish etiquette. 47 On Widemann's etching, the palatine is wearing a similar dark coat with light buttons. His decoration is the Order of the Golden Fleece. 48 By the second half of the seventeenth century, the manner of cutting had become simpler. It was possible to make any kind of clothing based on a few parameters and techniques. This new tailoring method was very inventive in making use of the most important qualities of woven fabric, namely that the strength of the perpendicular threads remains the same when the pieces which are cut straight are sewn together, while the parts which are cut diagonally stretch ; this way they adjust to the shape of the body, or make good pleats. The five Esterházy dolmans of the same size were made probably in this period, and so was the crimson satin one, which for decades has been thought to be Miklós Esterházy's wedding dolman. The system of symbols on the fasteners refers to a wedding. Miklós Esterházy's first marriage was to Orsolya Dersffy in 1612, and his second to Krisztina Nyáry in 1624. His son, Pál, married a cousin, Orsolya, at a very young age, in 1652. In 1682, Éva Thököly became Pál Esterházy's second wife. It is most likely that he wore the satin dolman on this occasion. The same size and cut, and the High Baroque style of the plated decoration, proves this assumption. I have been able to find only one clue to this special lace. 49 Judit Vér, the wife of Transylvanian army general Mihály Teleki (d. 1690), was buried in a skirt decorated with similar bone-lace plaited with golden thread. Béla Posta, who made and published this find, thinks that the skirt was made in the second half of the seven-
