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

13. a-b The Losonczy Ewer and Basin in 1884, Museum of Applied Arts, Archive

damage, i.e. the restorability, but the quality and exhibition value of the pieces still remain important. This work also demands knowledge of every piece in the treasury: not only the fragments themselves and objects known from archive photographs, but also objects that are known only from text description. The restoration work completed most recently (metalwork: Veronika Szilágyi and Gábor Juhász, 2016; woodwork: Mária Szabóné Szilágyi) concerned two Ottoman weapons.47 The restorations currently in progress demand further special skills, and work of a high level of difficulty: clocks and metalwork with precious stones and enamel decoration.

The future

There are only a finite number of artworks that can be restored, and studies of problematic pieces have for a long time shown up the potential for reconstruction, of which there are several examples among the treasury material.48 (This also counters the common argument that craft skills may gradually be lost if conservation is all that we do.)

The alternative of reconstruction is increasingly being considered for what is perhaps the most imposing artwork in the treasury, the Losonczy Basin and Ewer.49 Any attempt to hammer it out would endanger the cast rim and the embossed bowl,

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