Veres László: Üvegművességünk a XVI-XIX. században (Miskolc, 2006)

HUNGARIAN GLASSWARE PRODUCTION IN THE 16TH—19TH CENTURIES

collection of the Historical Museum in Kolozsvár (Cluj Napoca) also took shape. In the northern part of Hungary in the Zemplén mountains and later around Párád it was Béla Takács who collected the glass products made in the small glass works from the peasant households following Iván Balassah instructions. The methods of collection and the unexpected results were seen as a model bv other museums. Gé%a Alegay, an expert from the Herman Ottó Museum in Miskolc, collected wonderful glass items in the Bükk mountains while Aurél \ ajkai and István Eri found similarly precious pieces in the Bakony hills for the museum in Veszprém. As a result of the publications of Aurél Vajkai's findings glass art today also includes the most beautiful glass products which were made by simple technologies and found every day use in the homes of small Bakonv villages, especially in the lesser noble families of Szentgál. The research and discoveries in Transylvania, Bakony and Northern Hungary inspired further studies into the glass history of other territories in the Carpathian Basin and creation of the collection of the material remains of the one time forest glassworks. Museologists in Zala, Baranya and the southern regions as well as in the Uplands have acquired a significant amount of peasant glass to add to the noble glass products already in their collections. Museums in the Carpathian Basin had glass collections from the 17*—19

th centuries right up to the recent past. Glass items from the Middle Ages were extremely rare and accordingly unique. If they had any, they only had foreign, mainly Venetian glass. The Hungarian National Museum has the so called "Mátyás goblet", which is the masterpiece of Venetian glass making, outstanding given its unusually large size (42.8 cm tall) and its historical relevance. The cup of the funnel-shaped, thick-walled undecorated glass dish is held by a narrow ring and its node is decorated inside by white, threaded decoration. Its missing glass base was replaced by a gilded silver base decorated with tiny turquoise stones. The precious metal base has a verse summarising the history of the big cup, which was carved into it around the turn of the 16

th and 17

th centuries. According to the verse the dish is the old present of King Mátyás (Matthias) "brought from the Venetians", from which they had a drink at such times as they defeated the enemy. Later Louis II got hold of the goblet, and gave it as a present to his main cup-bearer, Ferenc Batthány in 1524. The precious relic was kept in the castle of the Batthány family in Rohonc. Following the confiscation of the property of the foreign minister during the War of Independence, Kázmér Batthány, in 1852 it went to foreign ownership. At the end of the 19

th century the Erdődy family bought it back from a tradesman in Munich and presented it as a gift to the I Iungarian National Museum in 1929. Another outstanding Venetian glass item is the 15

th century Gothic pear-shaped stemmed glass, with coloured enamelling around the edge of its ribbed wall cup decorated with gild and scaled ribbon, which was found in the excavations in Somogyvár. The so called "Bártfai cups" also belong to the outstanding pieces of Venetian glass art. Five of these are kept in the Sárosi Museum in Bártfa (Bardejov) and one each in the Eastern Slovak Museum in Kosice and the Hungarian National Museum. The pictures of angels who are holding the coat of arms of Bardejov town painted with coloured enamelling can be seen in the front and back of the cup made of colourless transparent glass formed into a pear shape. The first items in the museum collection of Hungarian glass products from the Middle Ages are represented by the two small phials that were presented to the Hungarian National Museum in 1885 by Róbert Schatz. The small glass items were found at the excavations of the Viennese monks' house in Bucla Castle. From the early 2()'

h century onwards the glass collections of the Hungarian museums have become richer and richer. This was due to the archaeological excavations at the site of the former royal towns and royal castles (Buda, Visegrád, Diósgyőr) as well as at manor houses and noblemen's palaces. Although the majority of glass finds are broken fragments, they are suitable for defining and reconstructing the various types of glass from the Middle Ages. With the help of the finds we can make certain assumptions concerning the level of glass artistry of the period and the influence, whether present or absent, of the dominant European trends. The academic research and study into the history of glass art is always a mirror of the collectionbuilding activities of the museums. This is naturally so because glass art represents a discipline in