Öriné Nagy Cecília (szerk.): A gödöllői szőnyeg 100 éve - Tanulmányok a 20. századi magyar textilművészet történetéhez (Gödöllő, 2009)
Summaries
Summaries 135 Emőke László Replicas, variants and reconstructions of carpets from the Renaissance to the 20 t h century In the last few years, the reconstruction and reweaving of three 20 l h century lost carpets of Gödöllő were executed here. They have been preserved only in sketches, in a painted version or in the form of a nearly finished cartoon. All the three carpets were designed by Sándor Nagy and they are entitled The Rose and the Butterfly, Hay Harvest and Ildikó. Before this, as early as in 1940, Leo Belntonte rewove for his son in France the carpet entitled Cassandra (designed by Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch in 1908), which was in the possession of the Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts. Furthermore, he also rewove in 1907, and then in 1942, the carpet entitled Family (Ilka and her children). This carpet was unfortunately destroyed in a fire accident during the World Exhibition of Venice in 1906. When the cartoon is ready, it is possible to reweave it several times and to have a few reproductions. In earlier centuries, it often occurred that many replicas were made of certain carpets ordered by lords or prelates and the reason for this was the enormous success of one and other series. In the repeated weavings, they generally omitted the use of golden thread and the commissioner occasionally requested a different border by changing its drawing. For commissioners of lesser fortune, the favourite details of a carpet were woven based on cartoons that were made not by the original designer, certain figures have been omitted, and the composition was shrunk, These variants were prepared mainly in Flemish and French manufactures. When the carpet was rewoven based on a preserved sketch or, in a better case, on a fragment of the carpet or of the cartoon, because the original had been destroyed or lost, the case is to be considered as reconstruction. It is worth the while to look back upon a few outstanding pieces woven during the last five centuries and to examine the difference between subsequent variants created after the original and the first few weavings, which were made on the basis of cartoon. This, to find out how true these subsequent variants were, compared to the original cartoon, i.e. to decide whether the composition, the size, the density of shuttles, the colours, and the types of yarn used underwent any change. How did the designers, many a time unknown, alter the design? Despite the fact that the composition often got shrunk, that the shape of the figures underwent some changes, that the border became different, or occasionally the quality of weaving became rougher, we can find many excellent creations among these variants. A series of carpets, which come down to us from the turn of the 15 t h and 16 t h century, constitute the nicest pieces of late Gothic textile art, but the designers and cartoon drawers of most of them are unknown. These carpets have not been woven in several copies, just as the ones created in the Romanesque Age. There were several scenes on the surface of these enormous carpets; some other details were woven several times in separate smaller individual carpets in a relatively short time after the preparation of the original one. Apart from a few early Renaissance carpets, Raphaello's ten piece series of carpets representing the Acts of the Apostles fundamentally changed this practice. Commissioned by Pope Leo X between 1515 and 1516, the series was meant to cover the sidewalls of the Sistine Chapel. Not much later, in 1540, they rewove several times nine pieces of the series. These carpets were such a success that reweaving continued even in the 17 l h and 18 , h centuries in different European workshops so that today some fifty variants are known. One of them is in the possession of the Museum of Applied Arts of Budapest. In the first quarter of the 16 t h century, they passed more and more decrees in Brussels by which they tried to protect the honour of a workshop or that of the trade in general. They forbade the weavers in 1525 to represent the human face by way of painting it on the carpet if the order exceeded a fixed price limit; the same decree places limitations on free weaving of the cartoons. In 1528, they made it obligatory to provide the carpets with the mark of the town and of the workshop in which it had been made. The revival of the French carpet weaving began by the coming to the throne of Henry IV. The court painters of Henry IV and Louis XIII prepared the cartoons for the carpets. However, since the cartoon drawers did not commit themselves to one particular workshop, it is difficult to tell the activities of one 17 t h century workshop from the other. From the carpet designs of Toussaint Dubreuil, one 10 piece series is known: The Story of Diana. The complete series has been vowen four times and specimens can be found today in Vienna, Paris, Madrid, and Genoa. The master's markings we find on them cover the persons of Hans Taye and Philippe Maecht, leaders of two different weaving workshops in Paris, more particularly in Fauburg Saint-Marcel. The carpet entitled Diana Kills Chione in the possession of the Museum of Applied Arts of Budapest is a piece belonging to these series. It is without border and marking, and though the composition and the drawing follow those of the same part of various famous series, its colours are finer and the expressions on the faces are milder. By all probability, the carpet was created around the same time, sometime near 1620, but in a different workshop, and persons of lower rank with modest fortune ordered it.
