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

András SZILÁGYI: About the Jewelled Cup in the Esterházy Collection

na, Prince Casimirus ... also came to Kismarton where seeing my sister, he fell in love with her and it almost came to pass that he married her."" Irrespective of the truth content of all this, there is a very important conclusion for our theme: Pál Esterházy cherished the memory of his sister Anna Julianna with justified pride and logically associated with her figure the king of the Poles, prince Casimirus at that time. Exactly when and from whom did he manage to acquire certain pieces from his sister's estate after 1669 - between 1669 and 1685? We cannot answer this question at present, or the one that inquires into the wedding gift handed over by Adam Kazanowski in 1644. What is justifiably assumed is that (at least) two pieces of Pál Esterházy's treasury had come from this estate. One is objectively documented in the inventory of 1685: "the skirt and bodice with pearls and diamonds of Anna Julianna Esterházy",

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8 The other passage, as has been seen, is the accurate description of the object with the addition of a piece of information - the mention of the name of king Casimirus - that is suggestive of enigmatic implications. All these circumstances considered, we can conclude that despite the heraldic mistake and despite its prehistory having been forgotten in 1685, the description refers to the subject-matter of the present paper, the famous jewelled cup, one of the finest pieces in the treasury of Pál Esterházy, palatine of Hungary, (fig. 9) 50