Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 28. (Budapest, 2012)

Lilla ERDEI T.: Metallic Thread Lace Ornaments on the Textiles of the Esterházy Treasury

the sources and archaeological materials testify. The popularity of metal lace is also borne out by the series of prohibitive measure by the county and town councils which forbade the lower social strata to wear laces. For instance, an ordinance of 1666 by the Zemplén county council stipulated that no gold or silver lace should appear on a peasant woman's costume, skirt, bodice or dress.

8 In Kecskemét in 1702 a similar rule was passed with the extension that the valuable ornaments would be torn off the offender's garments in the street.

9 Male shirt The lace of the purple atlas silk coat armour

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0 attributed to László Esterházy stresses the lines of the straight cut (fig. 1). The front and back are adorned with twice two large floral ornaments embroidered in gold thread and sewn with pearls. The lace runs vertically on the front and back, framing the neck cut, the eye and end of the sleeves and the bottom of the shirt. The scalloped edge points towards the middle of the garment. The small standing collar is propped up by two raports of lace fastened vertically to the back. Some 11 m of the socalled Genoese lace was used for the decoration of the whole shirt (fig. 2). Its rustic look and variable fan-and-flower pattern made it popular all over Europe in both linen thread (fig. 3) and metal thread variants. Several contemporaneous Hungarian archaeological finds contain versions of it, e.g. the funeral attire of Ferenc Rákóczi II," the dress fragment of Judit Veér, the wife of count Mihály Teleki,

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2 the finds unearthed during the excavations on St Benedict Hill in Veszprém,

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3 and the rich find of women's bodices, skirts and aprons from the graves of the Dobozi cemetery in Debrecen.

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4 It frequently decorated the 57 1. Coat armour