Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)

Ildikó PANDUR: Restoration of Metalwork from the Esterházy Treasury in the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts: Past, Present and Future

ILDIKÓ PANDUR

RESTORATION OF METALWORK FROM THE ESTERHÁZY TREASURY IN THE BUDAPEST MUSEUM

OF APPLIED ARTS:

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE'

The restoration of the Esterházy Treasury in the Museum of Applied Arts has a long history that is beyond the scope of a single article. Here I will cover the non-technical aspects of the restoration I have been involved in as art historian and curator in the Metalwork Department of the Museum of Applied Arts. My purpose is to consider some special historical and ethical aspects of the restoration that I consider essential to bear in mind in restoring the metalworks of the Esterházy Treasury.2

In the sea of goldsmithery awaiting restoration in Hungary, why do the pieces in the Esterházy Treasury occupy such a special place? Is this special treatment justified? Do they have some unique features that set them apart? To appreciate why the answer to these questions is definitely ‘yes’, we need to have a brief look at the story behind the treasury, and especially the fate that befell it in the twentieth century.3

In Hungary, it was only the legendarily wealthy Esterházy family that succeeded in preserving intact a Baroque-age aristocratic treasure, a true Kunst- und Wunderkammer into the twentieth century. Indeed, there are few to match it in Europe. One historical reason for this achievement is that Prince Pál Esterházy (1635-1713), son of the treasury’s founder, Palatine Miklós (1582-1645), and the member of the family who systematically built up the collection,

put the whole of it into an inalienable fidei- commissum in 1695.4

The devastation a falling bomb caused to the Esterházy treasury during the siege of Budapest in January 1945 had a definitive influence in the history of Hungarian art restoration. Aristocratic treasury pieces of the first order, having spent three years buried under the ruins of the Esterházy Palace in Tárnok Street, were retrieved in an extremely degraded condition with recourse to archaeological methods, a most unusual route for the recovery of seventeenth-century works of art, some with a royal background.

Many of the works of art brought to the surface between 10 and 24 January 1949— an extremely short time by modern standards—were in fragments, and all were transported to the state-owned collections of the Museum of Applied Arts. (Under a Hungarian law in place since August 1946, Hungarian private individuals could possess no more than 500 grams of gold.)5 Pál Esterházy had reported to the museum that the treasures were lying under the ruins of the palace, by then officially designated for clearance, and he requested that the museum, which also paid attention to the excavation, should take custody of them.6 His request was understandable, because the museum had been home to the artworks of the Esterházy treasury from the time they were brought to Hungary in 1919 up to the

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