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
particularly the original gilding. It is interesting that not even Joachim Szvetnik took up this challenge, although samples were taken of the rim castings, and can still be seen in his memorial house in Mélykút.50 In 1963, he wrote, ‘... we would not dare even to start on its restoration before studying it for several years.’51 (Fig. 13-14) Although there have been several proposals to restore it, the Losonczy Basin and Ewer remains impressive even in damaged condition and has appeared in several large-scale exhibitions. A 3D digital reconstruction was put on display in the 2008 Restorers’ Exhibition. It takes great professional humility for a restorer to admit that the long-term interests of an artwork may best be served by leaving it untouched, or at least making only reversible changes, as it is already evident nowadays. As a curator, I have experience of the pressure restorers face when artworks are being selected for exhibition as regards what is to be restored, and the time limits for the work. As I have accumulated experience, I have become increasingly convinced that my purpose as curator is not to enhance the exhibition spectacle—which can be achieved by an inventive installation—so much as to preserve originality. This is in the interests of many future generations of art historians and restorers, who need as much to be preserved as possible for investigations from historical or technical viewpoints. The Esterházy treasury contains predominantly seventeenth-century artworks, which up till 1945 had survived more than three hundred years intact. It is up to us today to ensure that their originality survives 14. Metalwork restorers Jenő Rácz, Péter Varga and Gábor Juhász with the Losonczy Ewer and Basin, Magyar Ötvös, 1990, II, 2, p. 28 85
