J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary. Presented to the XXII. International Congress for the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 4. (Budapest, 1970)

ESSAYS-LECTURES - B. Borsos : Early Hungarian Spa Glasses (in English)

Hungary is at least as rich in health resorts and spas as are Bohemia and Austria. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the literature refers repeatly to the water cures of the aristocracy, but glass souvenirs did not become popular before the end of the eighteenth century, with the flowering of the new "resort" culture. The earliest of the Hungarian resorts was at Balatonfüred, where, at the end of the 18th century, important structures were erected to cater to the increasing number of visitors. The rise of Pöstyén in Northern Hungary, which became, for foreign visitors, the most popular of the Hungarian spas, was almost simultaneous. In the south, Mehádia (Herkulesfürdő)* was the best known. As in Bohemia, the glasshouses were situated either in the same localities as the spas or close to them. Thus, for instance, the glass factories of the Dunántúl: at Somhegy, Úrkút, Ajka, are close to Balatonfüred; in Northern Hungary, those of Bártfa** or Párád are in the same towns; the Ferencvölgy glass factory in Eastern Hungary, in the region of the Mármaros near Técső, is only a halfhour's walk from the resort of Visk-Varhegy, which was popular in the early nineteenth century (Fig. 1—2.). The earliest Hungarian water cure glasses known to the author were made around 1820 and are uniform in style. They are simple, rather heavy stemmed glasses with ovoid bowls, thick, smooth stems and rounded feet. They are plain except for their engraved decoration, which consists of views of resorts, pictures of individual buildings, or of famed healing springs, often identified by inscriptions. The shallow engraving is detailed, and effects of perspective are well rendered. The engravers must have known the country well, since they apparently never worked from prints. An interesting example shows the springs at Bártfa (Fig. 3). The finely engraved image of the bathhouses shows traces of silvering, which must have been poorly executed (perhaps even experimental) since, with the exception of the deepest parts, the silver has disappeared almost without leaving a trace. The process is related to the gilding so characteristic of Hungarian glasses in the eighteenth century. It seems likely that glasses of this type were made either at Bártfa or in one of the nearby glasshouses, since several similar examples have been found which originated either in Bártfa, or in Ránkfürdő and Tátralomnic*** (Figs. 4—5). Another example with a similar picture is unidentified since the inscription is missing. A small group of Hungarian Biedermeier cut glasses of the nineteenth century can be recognized on the basis of their yellowish glass, their egg-shaped bowls and their style of engraving which is closely related to the glasses described above. Bouquets of flowers, butterflies and insects are depicted with the words "Souvenir", "Remembrance" and "To Remember". On one type with a handle, the engraver wrote. "Thus passes life" under a bunch of wilting roses. On the basis of their similarities, these unpretentious glasses may be ascribed to the same factories which produced the Bártfa glass. * Today Baile Herculane, Roumania ** Today Bardejov, Czechoslovakia *** Today Tatranská Lomnica, Czechoslovakia 164