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

for the next three hundred years. It is a fortunate researcher who has never been obliged to revise his or her opinion. Whatever we discover today, as we gain more and more information we ourselves, and even more so future researchers, will certainly modify or at least refine our conclusions. We must leave that opportunity.

One lifetime is enough for even the most up-to-date restoration to become obsolete. A restorer’s intervention is not forever: as new information comes to light, the materials used for the restoration suffer from ageing, or attitudes change, and there may

always be a need for a renewed restoration. There are many examples of this in the Esterházy treasury.

One of these is an eighteenth-century cup with cover.52 (Fig. 15) The decision to restore it again—for the Museum of Applied Arts’ exhibition in 2006—was grounded on several developments. First, a previously unidentified cover ornament (crowned double-headed eagle) could be identified among the debris, and secondly, some of the medallions on the side were identified from rock crystal fragments, some little more than crumbs. Joachim Szvetnik made replace15. a-b Cup with Cover before and after renewed restoration, inv.no. E.75.1

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