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
the seventeenth-century Philipp Jacob Drentwett, or the twentieth-century Joachim Szvetnik and István Ungi? Principles of restoration are always changing. My present view, which is no doubt open dispute, is that the most a restorer can aspire to is to avoid irreversible interventions and the difficulties they might cause to his or her successors. The preservation of originality is particularly important given the rate at which technology is advancing, because the loss of original material, gilding, etc. makes it impossible for future tests with better instruments and techniques. It can also be said of the Museum of Applied Arts’ ‘pioneer’ generation of restorers that they introduced many methodological innovations that were before their time and are now taken for granted. These included making dedicated tools and taking continuous photographs of every stage of the work.31 Facing enormous difficulties and lacking models to follow, they had to rely on their own creativity, and left many ingenious practical accomplishments behind them. Such were tricks to avoid soldering. For the damaged, broken original blisters on the cover of the Szapolyai Cup,32 they used little hemispheres cut to size so that they fitted tightly, covering the damage but retaining the original. To reinforce the base of another large, heavy cup with cover,33 with its allegorical female figure representing good government, they inserted a silver stiffening plate. They used a similar cold fastening method to stabilize the base of the Matthias Cup34 with a silver sheet. In pursuit of authenticity, they even experimented with original techniques, including the highly dangerous (mercury-based) fire gilding technique, in the metalwork restoration workshop.35 For a brief period, the new workshops in the Museum of Applied Arts belonged to the technical department. In 1953, the museum changed over to an organizational structure which has proved effective ever since: the restoration workshops are parts of the relevant department and mostly located close to the stores. The first generation of restorers had good intentions, but were untrained or at most had some trade qualification, and were what were known at the time as ‘scientific labourers’. Their special training consisted of hardly more than a few weeks’ course at the National Public Collections Inspectorate. A surviving legacy of this is a kind of aristocratic attitude towards restorers in museums, where their duties are sometimes held to include things like maintenance, installation and packaging. The staff in the Museum of Applied Arts were helpful and cooperative right from the start. The relevant committees met frequently, restoration teams were formed for larger jobs, and—as László Dömötör proudly declared—the assignment to collection departments meant that restorers ‘are in the right place. ... It is established practice in the museum for the conservation and restoration of each object to be a matter for discussion between the designated restorer and art historian.’36 We attempt to uphold this tradition today. There is mutual interdependence between restorers and curators, and consultation with staff in other departments is a natural daily practice. 1960s The Department of Restoration was set up in the Academy of Applied Arts in 1955 and ran on an experimental basis with a staff of five until 1959. Three of its graduates found 78
