Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)

Lilla TOMPOS: „... Száztíz szál sinor húsz gombra."

work nor had he paid for it, and he had asked the head of the button-makers' guild in Pest to decide the dispute between them. The button-maker master felt that he was guilty in the matter, and that instead of the 110 lengths of braid ordered by the customer for the belt he had used 120. Reference to this was made by the head of the guild, who came to the button-making master s defence; at the same time the head of the guild judged the work performed to be appropriate for the specifications submitted. According to the evidence of the pictorial depictions, braid belts were produced in many different ways. Here we can see three versions with the help of portraits and that of an artefact that has come down to us. The simplest type was made in such a way that the braid was held together using buttons. This type was wound round the waist many times. There is a good example of such a belt on a portrait of Dénes Bánffy, Master of the Horse and Royal Chamberlain. Here it can easily be seen that the belt is wound round the waist of his densely embroidered dolman six or seven times. The next version is represented by an artefact kept in the Textile Collection at the Hungarian National Museum: according to this, five meters of braid were needed for the production of the belt. The braid was spliced in two and the two halves joined together at intervals by means of rings made from gold wire and metallic thread; eventually rings were linked together in pairs. Braid belts must have been made in this way in numberless versions: on portraits, braided rings of three, five, six, or seven lengths of braid can be seen joined together. The version featuring six lengths of braid is worn by Tamás Tihanyi, Deputy Lord Chief Justice and Lord Lieutenant of Tolna county, on the portrait of him painted by Kramer. In this case the rings are fastened together with the result that a belt was created that was much broader than the earlier ones, but lighter to wear. A silk belt with gold or silver buttons supplemented the attire of the nobility and the wealthy middle class, while ordinary individuals had woollen or camelhair belts with buttons sewn on using silk, cotton or wool. The last-mentioned belts were part of the livery of coachmen, outriders and footmen. In the early nineteenth century, the fashion for braid belts did not come to an end. We come across its continuation in a plethora of colours and shapes as an accessory of Hungarian gala dress in the twentieth century also. Picture captions 1. Fragment of a network-belt 2. Detail of the network-belt 3-6. How the network-belt was made 7. Unknown master: Palatine Miklós Esterházy, 1645 (Hungarian National Museum, Historical Picture Gallery, inv. no. 36) 8. Majc-like belt (Hungarian National Museum) 9. Unknown master: Portrait of Lerenc Rákóczi II as a Child, 1684 (Hungarian National Museum, Historical Picture Gallery, inv. no. 2254) 10. Martin van Meytens: Dénes Bánffy, 1750-1760 (Hungarian National Museum, Historical Picture Gallery, inv. no. 54.13) 11. Belt made of silk cord, c. 1760 (Hungarian National Museum, Textile Collection, inv. no. 1942.20) 12. Detail of the cord belt. The cord is rectangular in cross-section 13-14. How such cord is made (by Enikő Sipos, textile restorer) 15. Detail of the cord belt: tassel 16. Sámuel Tamás Kramer: Tamás Tihanyi, 1783 (Hungarian National Museum, Historical Picture Gallery, inv. no. 59.11) 124