Begovácz Rózsa – Burján István – Vándor Andrea: Folk Art in Baranya County (Pécs, 2008)

Interieurs, Furniture

Szökröny (hewn chest). R.n. 52.1016.1 / h. 86 cms / I. 111,5 cms / w. 60 cms. or scratched (fluted) geometrical ornaments, the lines and partly the fields of which are painted black. The most frequent ornaments are circles, squares, crossing parallels and isosceles triangles constituted by diagonals of squares. The hewn chests in Baranya were coloured as early as in the middle of the nineteenth century, they were given a dark brown or reddish brown background by a staining treatment, then the individual elements were coloured with a blueish black paint. The shape similar to a coffin, with four horns (bibós) definitely suggests the Jewish Ark of the Covenant or the Egyptian or Roman sarcophagus. The top markedly takes the form of a gabled roof, which differentiates them from those outside the region where the lid is less protruding or absolutely flat, and the horns on the ends are also missing. The primary function of the chest was to carry the bride's trousseau, but in time the clothes of the family were also kept in the chest, in their secondary function they were used for storing food, later fodder for animals. Probably the hind horns were carved off in this period, since with the frequent opening the lid scratched the wall behind. In its tertiary function the chest fulfilled various tasks around the house (as a chicken pen for example). Painted chests became widespread in the region in the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth centuries, but they never fulfilled such a universal function as did hewn chests. The painted chest was primarily a hope chest, it was never meant to store corn fodder, flour or other kind of food. So it was of 14