Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 25. (Budapest, 2007)
Zsolt SOMOGYI: Pál Horti's Late Works in the United States of America
piece the clock face is made of oak and supplied with brass numerals and hands. The inlay embellishing the artefact is arranged in rows running down the two sides of the case. The description of the mechanism in each of the clocks is the following: ‘weight movement, eight day, half an hour strike, chain wind, brass cylindrical weights, cathedral gong, brass pendulum ball and hands’.31 Besides the pieces mentioned above, the catalogue offered numerous other freestanding clocks to the customers of the day. On these various - unhidden - stylistic influences can be discerned. The styles are reflected by the names, and fantasy names, used. We find ‘Colonial’, ‘Empire’, ‘Napoleon’, and ‘Van Dyke’ (sic) clocks, and also clocks named after cities (Cambridge, Manchester, Cherbourg, Munich). The doors on the cases of the ‘Grenada’, ‘Admiral’ and ‘Hiawatha’ clocks were embellished with lead-glass inlay. Horti designed numerous, mainly geometrical, stained-glass windows in Hungary. From a letter from Horti mentioned above, we know that besides furniture design, he also undertook work on glass while in the USA.32 This seems to be confirmed by a reading lamp embellished with peacock inlay that is attributed to Horti.33 The shade of this - as in the case of the other Shop of the Crafters lamps - was made from lead glass. (Especially imaginative is the lamp whose shade is reminiscent of a four-cornered hurricane lamp; on its stand are depicted umbrellas and walking sticks.) Lead-glass embellishments can also be seen on the doors of some Shop of the Crafters cupboards. The publication also contains photographs of a writing table and chair preserved in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.34 In addition to these pieces of furniture and the reading lamp, we find a mirror surround embellished with the very same peacock-feather motif.35 Additional pieces of furniture - mainly sofas, armchairs, rocking chairs and cabinets with shelves - were made with inlay embellishment fashioned from ‘imported Austrian woods’: we find this note next to works designed by Horti. Among the eight American Horti designs that are known, two are for pianos. In his letters, the artist mentions designs for forty pianos.36 In his detailed account of the St Louis World Exposition,37 Horti, in a review of factories and other manufacturing facilities in America, writes the following about the Baldwin piano concern: ‘I visited their factory in Cincinnati. It produces 1000 pianos per month. It’s a staggering figure, so many annually. And then selling them! The organisation and administration in a factory of this kind can be grasped only by someone who has witnessed them. Three enormous buildings!’ Later he continues in the following vein: ‘The rise of the factory is due in part to a Hungarian, Arnold Somlyo, who is now its director.’38 Bearing this in mind, it is conceivable that Horti worked for this enterprise, and that the two piano designs that survive were perhaps executed by the Baldwin Company. By the turn of the 20th century, the factory already had several decades of experience behind it. Founded in 1862 by Dwight Hamilton Baldwin, the enterprise took the name ‘Baldwin Piano Company’ in 1889.39 At the St. Louis World Exposition the firm displayed, among other of its products, a piano in the Art Nouveau style. ‘This was designed by the American painter Cest and the sculptor Barnhorn, precisely for the exposition. It was a wellshaped, artistic piece, with fine carving and restrained coloration. It was a pity that the legs were disproportionate and not thought out.’40 This sentence by the author indicates that the Baldwin Piano Company was open 117
