Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
TOMPOS Lilla: A korcovány az inventáriumok tükrében
LILLA TOMPOS THE "KORCOVÁNY" (A HUNGARIAN CLOTHING) AS REPRESENTED IN THE INVENTORIES There are pieces of clothing from different aristocratic collections and reasuries in the Hungarian museums, representing all characteristics of the various types; excavation findings, on the other hand, provide us with milestones for the exact dating. While these works of art create only a small fragment of Hungarian clothing, 16th-17th century Hungarian dowry lists give us a real picture about the diversity and splendour of women and menswear. Dowry lists seem to be nothing more than brief descriptions with a meaning long forgotten or altered through the centuries; yet they used to be real sources of information for the contemporaries. In the 16th-17th century men usually wore coats of different cuts: short or long, sleeved or sleeveless, padded or lined, they were called dolman, mente, felsőruha (ovcrclolhing), subica, jankó, fosztán or koreovány in contemporary Hungarian. From the above, the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts owns dolmans and mentes; in their cases the cut, the material and sometimes even the owners are known. On the other hand, we know nothing about subica ('shubitsa') and jankó ('yankaw'), except for the pattern, while fosztán ('fostan') means a kind of textile or a garment at the same time. Koreovány ('kortsovani'), which is the subject of present study, appears as a term both in lists of mens' and ladies' wear. At the time of the Hungarian Settlement, it was identified as a leather shield worn over the shirt. 1 The word itself was used first in 1395 2 , to describe a dolman worn over the breast-plate. In the 1633 inventory of Prince Gábor Bethlen (1613-1629) 3 , several koreoványt arc mentioned: a stitched ocean blue one of silk atlas and a black one cut in pattern. The cuts were made in accordance with the pattern of the textile or they were horizontal, parallel slashes decorating the finished coat (see pict.2). The inventory also mentions that there were "a bunch of - i.e. a pair of - "red weavings", decorated with silk. The above were made for normal, everyday use but three differently coloured koreoványs for nightwear are also listed.' 1 The shape of these pieces can be reconstructed with the help of a pattern book compiled in Kassa in 1636 and rewritten again in 1717. 5 According to the book, the upper part had a standing collar. The coat was sleeveless, reaching to the waistline. It was equipped with a trapezoid skirt and could be closed with buttons. Five cubits of fabric were enough to make a koreovány and the matching trousers, which were hugging above the knees but loose on the two sides of the hip. The excess material of the loose hip curves were gathered at the waist and fixed to the button-line covered with the skirt of the top. The special cup-shaped part for the genitals was also drawn in the pattern of
