Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 28. (Budapest, 2012)
Events 2009-2010
study on Daniel Szilágyi' 's Photo Collection , Tatjána Kardos and Iván Szántó present the archive photos of a Hungarian book merchant settled in Istanbul, Dániel Szilágyi (1831-1885) including Persian albums. This collection is a valuable treasure of the archive of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts. Persian Arms Manufacture in the Modern Age is the title of Tibor S. Kovács's paper on Qajar-age weapons in Hungarian public collections, with special regard to officers of Hungarian origin who contributed to the 19th century modernization of the Persian army. Persian Metalwork in the Qajar Era by Iván Szántó and Mohammad Sahranavard gives account of Persian metalworking from the raw materials to the traditions of diverse workshops. Another paper by Iván Szántó, Faded Lustre: Ceramic Art in the Qajar Period, describes the decline of pottery, the lack of demand for goods from Iran and even the reversal of the direction of trading. Emese Pásztor's 18-19th Century Persian Carpets and Other Textiles enlarges upon the preQajar age textile traditions and the general "carpet craze" all over Europe in the second half of the 19th century. Artefacts for Everyday Use is a paper by Iván Szántó on the everyday material culture of women spending the greater part of their lives at home bringing up children and tending the house, and of men whose social life was tied to the mosque, the bazaar, the bath and the café. His next essay, The Art of Beliefs, contains the translation and detailed description of Iranian amulets and talismans with religious invocations kept in the collection of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts. Under the title Paraphernalia of Shiite Holidays Iván Szántó describes the special Persian procession i flags, metal animal figures and ritual weapons of Shiite Islam. These objects are preserved in the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts, the Museum of Military History and the Hungarian National Museum. The last paper, Béla Kelényi's The History of Collecting Modern-Age Persian Art in Hungary presents 19th century Hungarian collections that include both Far and Near Eastern, such as Persian, artefacts. This enhanced interest was also closely related to the rediscovery or the ambition to re-create a "national style" believed to have roots in Persian art as well. In the second part of the volume the photos of some 300 objects of Persian art in Hungarian public collections can be found. In 2010 the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts was largely involved in exhibitions related to the Orient at various venues. They include the Japanese Kimono and Textile Exhibition in the Lace Museum at Kiskunhalas in spring 2010, to which the museum did not only loan Japanese textiles but also contributed professional assistance. The exhibition entitled On Behalf of Christ - Missions and Missionaries was staged at the archiepiscopal treasury of Kalocsa from spring to late October 2010. It was the first time that the set of archive slides about the Far Eastern missions and religions purchased from the estate of József Waigand and kept at the Archive of the Ferenc Hopp Museum had been put on display. Our project In the gate of the East launched in 2009 continued after a halt in 2010, thanks to the generous support of a sponsor of the museum. The most important work carried on in 2010 was the digitalization of the collections of the library and archive of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts in the Andrássy út precincts. Györgyi Fajcsák 147
