Estók János (szerk.): A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 2008-2010 (Budapest, 2010)
Kárpáti Elemérné: Textilgyűjtemény a Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeumban
The Textile Collection of the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture ELEMÉRNÉ KÁRPÁTI At the time of its establishment the museum had several textile objects, the first pieces of which were selected by a five-member professional committee and became the museum's property at the same time as the wooden building of the museum was erected. In the following years a great number of textiles were donated to the museum by various national and partner institutions, county councils, famous persons, and unknown donators. The committee listed this material under the No. 9 category of ‘cottage industry, ethnography’ and displayed the material in existing exhibitions. After the demolition of the wooden museum building and until the opening of the reconstructed new stone building of the Vajdahunyad Castle in 1907 the textiles were stored in crates in temporary warehouses. When the new exhibitions were produced, the existing textile objects were classified and shown in exhibitions as representatives of the final product of plant cultivation or animal breeding processes, demonstrating Hungarian cottage industry, animal breeding and pastoral life. A separate exhibition section was provided for silk production and even the dioramas of the water architectural section were made attractive by dressed dummies. The events after World War I and the Great Depression put a stop to the continuous development of the successful beginnings. Territorial losses suffered by Hungary caused not only a decrease of arable land, but it was also necessary to change the structure of agriculture. The unchanged exhibitions existing since 1907 did not give a realistic portrayal of the situation of agriculture, therefore, between the years 1933-1938 the exhibitions had to be given a new meaning and had to be reorganized. Many parts of the exhibition were cleared and new, modern agricultural sectors were presented in place of the old ones. Part of the exhibition material was given to other institutions due to the lack of storage capacity. Many valuable objects were transferred from the museum’s ownership due to the outsourcing activity of that time. In World War II six bomb hits heavily damaged the building of the museum along with its existing exhibitions. In 1945, after repairing war damages and reviewing the remaining objects, the museum had only 24 textile objects in comparison to the collection numbering more than a thousand at the beginning of the century. In the 1950's the exhibitions were reorganized and the museum's employees of that time started a campaign of collecting objects. At this time the aim was not only to exhibit, but also to enlarge the collections. Due to the enthusiastic collecting activity of textiles as well, by the beginning of the 1960's the museum had enough textile articles to establish an independent collection in 1966. After preliminary difficulties in 2001 a modern store-room was built for the purpose of not only storing the existing collection, but also for providing space for the growing number of objects. Nowadays the Textile Collection consists of 1541 items and it is considered important by the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture because the household textiles and clothing with ethnographic character are important representatives of the everyday life and work of peasants. The museum strives to maintain this character of the collection, thus allowing the Textile Collection to fit into the general professional scope of the museum’s accession policy. 164
