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

Folk Pottery

The Ethnographical Department of the Baranya County Museum (Janus Pannonius Museum) preserves around 3000 artifacts of pottery. Most of these were collected in the county, the majority was made in potteries in Baranya. Due to donations of private collectors and marketing potters from more remote centers of pottery objects from distant parts of the Hungarian-speaking area were also drawn into the collection. Many valuable objects enriched our museum from the collection of Júlia and Teréz Zsolnay as well as the bequest of Dr Kálmán Tompa. Potteries and their products in Baranya Bakóca is situated in the Northern, Hegyhát region of Baranya, its most renowned potter was Géza Sáfrány. He learnt his trade in his father's pottery, which he practised along with the traditional way of life of peasants. He mined the material himself in the fields of the village, worked with his home-made tools, baked his pots in a kiln made by himself. On his pots the pattern was applied with a 'gurgulya' (a small, round earthenware tank with a small pipe containing the liquid for the ornaments) on a characteristic, reddish-brown, sometimes dark brown The potter's wife is ornamenting the vessel with a 'gurgulya'. 1969, photograph by János Zentai Géza Sáfrány, potter from Bakóca with his drying ware vessels. 1968, photograph by János Zentai earthen66