Veres Gábor: A népi bútorzat története Északkelet-Magyarországon - Studia Agriensia 28. (Eger, 2008)
THE HISTORY OF FOLK FURNITURE IN NORTHEASTERN HUNGARY
begins to be decorated in the style of the painted chests in northeastern Hungary, and our study records not only where and when this occurred, but among which ethnic groups and concerning what types of furniture. Although the painting of chests, benches and beds was widespread, the decoration of chairs, and even more rarely tables, only occurred in very specific areas, as was the case with the decoration of arm-rests with small brightly coloured flowers in Mezőkövesd and the Matyó villages. Tables painted red with black marbling from the Eger area have also found their way into museum collections. The legged wardrobe first appears among the peasantry of northeastern Hungary at the end of the 19th century. Its use spread at a time when urban bourgeois styles were becoming popular, the simple brown wardrobe becoming common at the beginning of the 20th century. Only a few examples of painted floral wardrobes from our region can be found in our museum collections. Some items dating from the middle of the nineteenth century can be tied to ethnic German communities, like the wardrobes coming from Aldebrő in Heves County, where German agricultural labourers settled during the eighteenth century at a time when wardrobes were becoming common among the peasantry of a number of German provinces. There were craftsmen, some cabinet-makers, among the tradition-respecting Germans who arrived in the Eger area. It was probably they who made the wardrobes, as we have been unable to find any data suggesting that a Hungarian cabinet-maker worked for them. At the same time there is nothing to suggest that the Hungarian peasantry would have adopted the painted wardrobe from the German-populated villages, or even from villages like Egerszalók, where there was a mixed population. Wardrobes containing painted floral motifs have tended to be ignored in accounts of Hungarian folk furniture in our region due to their patchy history. At a number of points the study examines the parallels existing between developments in furniture and domestic culture in general. The relevant sources prove that the stylistic changes in folk furniture also led to changes in the way other household objects looked in northeastern Hungary. Mirrors, wall-clocks, picture frames, lighting fixtures decorated in various different ways are to be found all over the region under examination. Not surprisingly there are very few survivals or written references to the way the peasantry used such objects in the eighteenth century. Objects harmonizing with the domestic furniture do appear however in considerable numbers during the course of the nineteenth century. It is only at the turn of the twentieth century that most objects, like the wall-clock for instance, become widespread 183
