Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)
Zsuzsa MARGITTAL The Museum of Applied Arts in 2017
on the website collections.imm.hu has been ongoing as part of the Transparency Program, launched in 2016. By the end of 2017, more than 60% of the collection had been processed online thanks to the coordinated and assiduous work of the museum’s specialists alongside staff specifically contracted for the project; this represents a unique achievement for a Hungarian public collection. Within the framework of the program, new digital photographs are being taken of the objects following minor restoration and cleaning, and information about them is being revised. (Fig. 1) In 2017, 22,880 objects were published online, meaning that by the end of the year altogether 38,629 items were accessible to the public online. Much of this material is also available on the Europeana.eu portal. In the year before the closing, complex research on visitor patterns was conducted, which included questionnaires, a study of visitor movements in the exhibition spaces and extensive interviews. Analysis of the results will help the museum to create a communication strategy when it reopens. A part of the research was the free, experimental ‘co-working program’ announced in June. In 2016, following a governmental decree, the transfer of objects formerly owned by the family of Prince Esterházy from the museum to the Eszterháza Cultural, Research and Festival Centre Non-profit Ltd. in Fertőd began. In the meantime, the Esterházy Privatstiftung submitted a claim for restitution of the works from the Esterházy treasury, which the family had entailed until it was nationalized in 1949. The dispute was not resolved in 2017, but it suspended further transfer of the objects. The museum has fulfilled its obligations to supply data related to this case. I. Collection development and research New acquisitions With the aid of the National Cultural Fund of Hungary, the museum was able to fill in several gaps in its collection in 2017. Among those items acquired were the ceramics works of Éva Ambrus (inv. no. 2017.32.1-2.1-2. - 2017.53.1.1-3) and two sculptures by György Fusz, who had not been previously represented in the collection (Nodder II, inv. no. 2017.30.1; Shell 8, inv. no. 2017.31.1). (Fig. 2) Support from the National Cultural Fund of Hungary also enabled the museum to purchase works by the internationally recognized contemporary jewellery artist Réka Lőrincz. These jewellery pieces were the first by this artist to be acquired by a Hungarian public collection. One of these is the boundary-pushing Soda-object (inv. no. 2017.28.1) (Fig. 3) and the ninth object in the Jewel Can series, expressly made for the museum’s collection (Jewel Can Broach IX., inv. no. 2017.29.1). Also of note is Fanni Király’s ring from the series ‘Twelve millennia (inv. no. 2017.24.1). A significant acquisition was a collection of Post- Byzantine icon paintings (154 pieces) (inv. no. 2017.55-208) that had been deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts and was transferred to the Museum of Applied Arts’ Metalwork Collection. An outstanding new acquisition by the Textile Collection is the tapestry designed by Sándor Nagy (inv. no. 2017.213.1) with the spider motif emblem of the Gödöllő Weaving Workshop (which operated after 1920) on one of its short sides. Another is the carpet designed by Ede Toroczkai Wigand depicting Prince Csaba (inv. no. 2017.263.1) , (Fig. 4) which previously be122
