Lengyel László (szerk.): Devóció és dekoráció - 18. és 19. századi korolstormunkák Magyarországon - Studia Agriensia 7. (Eger, 1987)
Summary
On vellum not only single pictures were made but copied and printed copper plate engravings too, which were coloured. From abroad, first of all the 17th and 18th century prints of the great copper plate engraving families and workshops from Antwerp, Augsburg and Vienna reached Hungary and created a big impression in developing the genre. The genre of the small pious pictures has an immense iconographie variability. The image of a patron saint, painted with his/her attributes, name and perhaps with a famous scene from his/her life history was probably the most widespread. Among the small devotional pictures we can find illustrations in large numbers of Baroque icons and statues. In Hungary mostly the Poes and Zell icons were copied (111. 68 — 69.). With the increasing propagation of printing techniques the small devotional pictures came onto the market mostly as prints. In the 19th century however the steadfast work of the devout miniature painter was changed by the mass production of the big printing industry. GARLANDED POLION DECORATED NUN WORKS The nuns used their special art technique the so-called polion decoration with great pleasure in the decoration of devotional pictures and relics. They usually displayed their technical skill with the decoration of small pious pictures. In the convents they created the so-called architype of nun works with the use of devotional pictures, polion decoration and the 'oint use of relics and subtitled ribbons. Apart from polion technique they used embroidered frames a lot as well. Among objects of this type, we know of individual picture form compositions and ones which function also as applied decorations. The largest number of such nun works were devotional pictures painted or printed on vellum, paper, textile and copper plate and placed in frames, under glass and were encircled by garlanded polion decoration. The frame decoration which was made with the so-called Roman technique is a little bit different from polion decoration. The plastic decoration which was made from gilded paperroulé was formed like goldsmiths filigree motifs. This technique was popular from the 18th century until the beginning of our own. 147
