Vida Gabriella: A miskolci fazekasság a 16-19. században (Officina Musei 8. Miskolc, 1999)

THE POTTERY OF MISKOLC

the existence of the earlier decorative style, so it is not surprising that from the middle of the 19

th century the Heves style becomes predominant in these areas. The great social changes did not pass by the agrarian towns of the Great Plains without having an affect on them. After the demise of the Turkish rule and the defeat of the freedom fight of Rákóczi and as a result of the great resettlement the earlier dominant uniform religious social group was almost completely reshaped. There were hardly any villages in Borsod county, where there were no new Slovak and Ruthene settlers, and further north whole villages were repopulated with the mixed nationalities of the Uplands. The Reformist nobility lost its influence in a number of towns (like in Miskolc). From the 18

th century the cheaper and commercially readily available stoneware, porcelain and hard glazed products already popular in Western Europe were offering competition to the lead glazed pottery in Hungary and the first ceramic manufacturing operations had occurred too, i.e. in Pongyelok. So the customers of the pottery ware remained the village peasantry and the poorer population of the towns. This social reorganisation and economical changes were completed by the beginning of the 19

th century everywhere. This is the period, when the pots with drawn or sgraffito techniques on white background and green or red contoured floral patterns dis appeared from the larger agrarian towns. The separation of the design ideas of the pottery centres commenced, the articulation of the individual stylistic expression. From the examination of the birthplaces of pottery apprentices of Miskolc it became obvious, that during the guild period there is a positive north to south migration tendency among the apprentices. This tendency remains during the whole period of the guild, so the northern apprentices settled and became master potters here. Hence Miskolc potters had a strong northern influence from the 18

th century. From the research of Román János we observe, that the same process occurred during the first half of the 19

th century in Sárospatak and Ungvár too, as an effect of potters arriving from Munkács. According to the guild papers the most southerly destinations of this migration were Miskolc and Ónod. The apprentices from Gömör also mainly settled in Miskolc. This strong, positive migration has changed the pottery styles of both guilds. In those centres where they arrived the sgraffito technique has disappeared - till the line of Miskolc and Ónod - and also the drawing style, they were replaced by the brush technique. The green base colour was replaced by blackish-brown manganese superoxide colour. New colours were introduced, like blue. New motifs were painted on the pots: large pettled side view of a rose, 3-3 pettled clusters and generally large flowers. The flower bunches had started to break up into their constituent parts: the flower bushes contained 1 or 2 elements regularly repeated, the number of elements was decreasing continually and the decorating pieces were growing in size. A particular motif was painted symmetrically in 2 or 3 colours. The pottery products of the Miskolc guild are indistinguishable from the Gömör ones during the second half of the 19 century, but the usage of the Sárospatak stylistic effect is also strong. Due to the joint design principles and colour usage the similarity is great between the two schools. The Miskolc guild was a low membership, provincial and a slowly developing guild from its founding till 1872. They could not prevent outsiders operating in their town and there were always the presence of land mayors. After 1820 the country masters' number had significantly increased: from the 129 enrolled members during 105 years of existence of the guild almost half were land mayors. The migration into the smaller towns by the masters started at the same time. The master generation of Tiszafüred started operating during this time producing glazed ceramics, who had Miskolc connections. The sudden decline was probably due to the loss of the most important clay supply in 1810. Ill