Lengyel László (szerk.): Devóció és dekoráció - 18. és 19. századi korolstormunkák Magyarországon - Studia Agriensia 7. (Eger, 1987)
Summary
ZOLTÁN SZILARDFY DEVOTION AND DECORATION “FRESH INFANT'S PICTURE, NUN WORK... ” Since the first century B.C. the cult linked to the sacred objects of popular piety has undergone many crises. The first so-called culture struggle was the Iconoclasm which ended with the restoration of icons during the Second Council of Nicaea. At the end of the Middle Ages the veneration of pictures and relics came into conflict with Hussitism and later with the Protestant doctrine. Therefore, in 1563 the Twenty fifth Session of the Council of Trent especially concentrated on this question, particularly attending the personal character of the object cult, but preserving the traditional practice of veneration for saint’s pictures and relics. Generally the demand of the populations’ piety was served by the craft workshops of the religious drders; they sold their reliquiaries at church feasts and markets. One type of special hand made devotional picture was particularly popular from among the number of reliquiaries, which was given the title “nun work” by contemporary sources. The flowering of these beautiful works of art occured during the 17th an 18th centuries. All the conditions for painting minTature devotional pictures, decorating relics and the patience demanded by handcraft were present in the nuns’ communities of the 17th and 18th centuries. We know about the activities fo the orders of St. Clarissa, St. Ursula, St. Elisabeth and the Mary Ward’s nuns. The humility which the religious orders inherited from the Middle Ages obscured the creators’ names, however the valuable data collected a century ago by Lajos Némethy throws light on one nun of the St. Clarissa order in Buda, Anna Erzsébet Falkoner (1714 — 1790) who is from a famous painting family and whose “knowledge of pictography enabled her to enter the order without money”. Némethy entitles her miniature masterpieces painted on vellum and her own altar, rich in polion decoration which also praises the skill of its maker, due to the inventive forms. The miniature pictures were generally taken from engravings. These pictures, glittering in glazed, recessed frames, decorated with silver-gold thread and knotted wire, with velvet-silk flowers, could be found equally in the homes of nobles and middle-class people. Behind the wire decorations which were embellished with gems, pearls and coloured cut glass, saints' relics with their names on small subtitled ribbons were hid. This 137
