Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
SZILÁGYI András: Az Esterházy gyűjtemény Cupidós násfájáról
general meaning. Compositions like Paulus Moreelse's portrait from 1630 ( Ermitage, St. Petersburg) can be mentioned as examples. In this painting, Marie de Rohan, the duchess of Chevreuse is presented as Venus. 3 Adaptations of mythological topics such as the "Triumph of Venus" arc there in several significant pieces of sixteenth and seventeenth century literature. The most interesting ones among them - at least from our point of view - are the examples of Epithalamium poetry, invoked mainly to celebrate aristocratic marriages. Being a rather special genre of Late-Humanist and Baroque literature, these poems were limited to a mere presentation of different mythological figures (Venus was doubtlessly the primary figure among them) in a fictive story. Most of these verses enriched the contemporary Neo-Latin literature, though their influence was strong almost everywhere, including Hungarian Baroque poetry. Two significant events and their literary representation might be given as examples: the wedding of Mary Stuart (1542-1587) of 19th April, 1558 was greeted by the French Jean Dorat, in a ceremonical, Latin-language ode, where the fourteen-year-old bride is celebrated as the Venus of Lotharingia. 4 Far from this wedding both in time and space, a poem greeted another important event, this time in Hungary, in the autumn of 1664: the adventure of Murány, remembered by István Gyöngyösi. In his long poem he celebrated the bride of Ferenc Wesselényi, the lady of the castle of Murány. The title of the poem calles Maria Szécsi the "Venus of Murány" 5 . The slightly resembling, typical structure of the two celebration poems - the goddess manifested in a female figure, and the heroine received her deserved tribute in the person of Venus was more or less typical of contemporary public thinking. Its effect was not only evident in literary or artistic pieces but also on the luxurious props and relics of aristocratic weddings, for in the decoration of wedding presents. To present a work of art to someone necessarily means a special relation between presenter and the presented one. To deepen and reinforce the relationship, a personal piece - for example an expensive, valuable, beautiful jewel - seems most adequate, since it represents a clearly identifiable message. Valuable jewels, mainly pendants with symbolic figures, presented on the occasion of an engagement were suitable to convey this message. It is especially true for those variants where the main motif - the Cupid figure shooting an arrow - is completed by relief figures of two doves. If the present is accepted, it adds a special characteristic to the personality of the addressee - the "chosen", designated owner -, referring to Venus, the ideal of beauty and love. From this point of view, the engagement present is more than a mere convention: the gift implies, directly or indirectly, how the sender of the jewel sees his sweetheart. It is not exaggaration, therefore, to say that the Cupid pendant belongs to those few types where the jewel was able to preserve and fulfil its ancient, magical role. Literature about Late Renaissance and Baroque jewellery has mentioned or published several, contemporary representative* nf this typo Among them there are three beautiful pendants that are close analogies of the piece described above, in structure, size and decoration. One of them used to belong to the Fraknó treasury of the Esterházy family and is now in the collection of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts 6 , the other two can be found in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum and in the Ermitage, in St. Petersburg. 7 The latter two pieces have always been defined
