Őriné Nagy Cecília: A gödöllői szőnyeg 100 éve (Gödöllő, 2007)

THE GÖDÖLLŐ CARPET'S 100 YEARS

they employed the kilim and sumak techniques, used the back of the simple sumak weave, made gobelins with identical faces using the Swedish or Sherrebeck technique, and made what they called "old gobelin". Another local speciality was the sewn sumak, a technique resulting in an enhanced surface, a sewn plain cloth with a very thin weft. It is a technique very encouraging for novices because it is easy to learn, even slight changes in colour can be executed beautifully, and the resulting tapestry is durable, retaining its straight edges. Leo Belmonte also taught the French gobelin technique to his students, with likewise handsome results. Their very tightly knotted carpets were also quite famous. The creations produced here reflected a respect for handicraft and for the quality of execution, and were compared as markedly different from mass-produced articles. A special emphasis was laid upon the dying of the yarn. KörösfőiKriesch found it important to use high-quality vegetal dies, and employed a lady weaver of great experience, who had widely travelled in the world. Valéria Kiss, who vowed poverty and devoted her life to teaching, was also skilled in dyeing. She was instrumental in launching the new enterprise towards success. They tried to grow the necessary plants but the grounds available were not suitable for such purposes. Later they also experimented with chemicals, and Leo Belmonte took a course in vegetal dyeing at the Manufacture des Gobelins, but even this failed to bring about a breakthrough. In 1913, Rózsa Frey, the technical director of the workshop, travelled to Mora, Sweden, where she studied vegetal dyeing. She and her colleagues had to select those plants that could survive and were also indigenous to Hungary. Her Mora notebook helps us identify the plants (or parts thereof): flowers, leaves, stems, roots) used for dyeing yarns in Gödöllő. These were the following: the common madder (Rubia tinctorum), cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), Zinnia elegáns, blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), anil (Indigofera suffruticosa), crab apple (Malus silvestris), dyer's greenweed (Genista tinctoria), Zelnice morello (Padus avium), common alder (Alnus glutinosa), black alder (Rhamnus frangula) dyer's buckthorn (Rhamnus tinctoria), silver birch (betula pendula) and pubescent birch (Betula pubescens). They also used an insect: the mealy bug (Coccus cocti). The works of the Gödöllő workshop were featured at exhibitions of the applied arts both in Hungary and abroad. In the interiors jointly