Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)
Zsuzsa MARGITTAL The Museum of Applied Arts in 2017
longed to the furnishings of the designer’s house in Marosvásárhely (now Târgu Mureş, Romania). The museum also managed to purchase for its Archives several designs by György Konecsni from his bequest, and furthermore received donations equal to the cost of the purchase. The museum again used its own resources to buy designs for a few objects from the Zsolnay manufactory’s Orchid tableware set, along with some other plans and two prints series by Zoltán Perei. With the help of volunteers, the Contemporary Design Department began processing the entire archival collection given by the VAM Design Centre, which contains important documents on the history of design in the second half of the 20th century. In addition, the Furniture Collection acquired György Gyimóthy’s SHIN cabinets, belonging to his eco furniture family (inv. no. 2017.253.1-2). The Museum of Applied Arts has been participating in the Asset Depository Program of the Central Bank of Hungary since 2016. The objective of the program is to purchase works by Hungarian artists that are currently owned abroad and deposit them in Hungarian public collections for long-term loan. Within the framework of this program, the Bank bought painter and applied artist Gyula Tornai’s six-piece furniture set, decorated with inlays, and deposited it in the Museum of Applied Arts in 2017. Research Research on deposited objects and their history as well as the continuous research and reporting of information on the Esterházy objects uncovered a significant amount of archival material. The museum staff participated in several domestic and international conferences and many of their studies were published in Hungary and abroad. The catalogue of the Breuer at Home Again exhibition appeared in 2017 (Breuer újra itthon - Breuer at Home Again. Ed.: Eszter Baldavári, Éva Horányi, Pál Ritoók, Ágnes Anna Sebestyén. Exhibition catalogue. Budapest: Museum of Applied Arts, 2017.) During 2017 research was done in connection with some important restoration projects: for example, a comprehensive art historical study of Antonio Tempesta’s painting on lapis lazuli (with The Garden of Eden with the Creation of Eve on the recto and The Crossing of the Red Sea on the verso), currently undergoing restoration. The painting on stone can be classified as a type found in former Kunst- und Wunderkammers (Cabinets of Curiosities). Restoration of the Tempesta work is being financed by the Friends of the Museum of Applied Arts. As part of his research, Miklós Gálos, head of the museum’s Metalwork Collection, has compiled analogies that support the attribution of the work to Tempesta and has also investigated its provenance (see the study by Miklós Gálos, pp. 7-36.) The museum participated in research coordinated by the University of Birmingham, focusing on the interaction between the former South Kensington Museum and the museums of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the impact of this contact on the cultural institutions of the countries involved. Under the leadership of Professor Matthew Rampley, the participating countries are working on the creation of an online exhibition addressing the following themes: The City; The Nation; The Empire; 125
