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

Acquisitions between 2006 and 2010

ACQUISITIONS BETWEEN 2006 AND 2010 To return to an old tradition of the Yearbook, we briefly introduce the new acquisitions of the Museum of Applied Arts over the past period. This time we are selecting from pieces inventoried between 2006 and 2010. These years were characterized by a lack of a specific budget for the purchase of art works. The objects which were acquired nonetheless arrived along two paths: via participation in different competitions for funds and donation by our generous patrons. The museum made everything in its powers to get funds through competitions. The resources made available by the Applied Arts and Museum committees of the National Cultural Fund provided the main source of financing the purchase of historical artworks. Such highly valuable pieces can now enrich our historical stock as Júlia Báthory's several glass objects or the coppersmith Gusztáv Jancsurák's pieces from around the turn of the century. The largest single sum that could be won in competition in the period at issue was offered by the Applied Arts section of the National Cultural Fund: the curators of the museum collections had the opportunity to pick some pieces from the Craft & Design exhibition staged in collaboration with the Association of Artists and Designers in 2008 (see the Calendar of Events in Ars Decorativa 27). Some items were donated to the museum by the artists, others could be purchased from competitive resources. 35 outstanding items and sets were inventoried in 2010. The museum had successful bids in competitions for the support of contemporary art, too. New objects could also be bought with the money the museum won from the Hungarian Institute for Culture and Art every year. The Museum of Applied Arts joined the MaDok contemporary program coordinated by the Ethnographic Museum which resulted, among other things, in the acquisition of an Ernő Rubik collection of 145 items in 2009. In the past five years several large estates and thematic collections were also included in the museum. Most outstanding are the carpet collection (see below) from the estate of a one-time curator of the Museum, Ferenc Batári and the collection of some 100 dance cards, mostly from the 19th century, donated to the museum by the private collectors Árpád Marton and his wife. In 2009 Rózsa Szanka, a member of the Friends of Small Graphics donated 450 small graphic works from Transylvania to enrich the museum's ex libris collection. The museum received the objects from Csaba Skultéty's Fiume collection in the same year, after the National Széchényi Library had purchased the documents from that collection. The museum makes efforts to show as many new acquisitions to the public as possible. Some objects were included in the latest acquisitions section of the permanent 111