Kecskés Péter (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum Közleményei 3. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1985)

Tanulmányok - K. CSILLÉRY KLÁRA: Statisztikai vizsgálatok a magyar népi bútorok történetéhez

Statistical curve are found in the early 19th century, the middle and the end of the century and coincide with the periods of major changes of style in Hungarian peasant furniture and in Hungarian folk art as a whole. The next graph (Figure 2) shows the makers of dated furniture (cabinetmakers = crossed hatching, cottage industry craftsmen = black shading; home-made = vertical hatching), indicating that the overwhelming majority of the dated decorative furniture was the work of cabinetmakers, while makers of the other items followed their example in dating the more important pieces. Figure 3 shows how the production of dated furniture of peasant teste shifted from the towns and market towns (grid) to the villages (vertical hatching), while figure 4 shows how the emphasis in the use of such furniture shifted to the villages. To illustrate the differing periods in which this process took place, Figure 6 gives the example of a market town, Hódmezővásárhely (Southern Hungary). Here the time gaps according to social strata can be shown (painted floral trousseau chests of the more prosperous = crossed; plainer, home-made trousseau chests = black ; other decorative furniture = white). The graph in Figure 5 shows the uneven evolution of demand for the objects with traditional decoration, comparing the former furniture (broken line) with the local, dated pottery in more everyday use (continuous line). The next graph (Figure 7) shows the dated furniture from Fadd, a village in Southern Hungary (trousseau furniture = crossed, other decorative furniture = white). The findings of this statistical analysis of Hungarian peasant furniture seem to be of wider validity. Like the graphs drawn earlier for French and North-west German dated furniture, for example, the initial stage of the graphs can be explained by the price trend determined by the international market (Figure 8: the graph for Hungarian grain prices). Finally, the author points out how far the statistical findings confirm the Theory of Cultural Fixation.