Cseri Miklós – Bereczki Ibolya (szerk.): Ház és ember. A Szabadtéri Néprakzi Múzeum Évkönyve 23. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2011)
HUGYECSEK BALÁZS: Egy 19. századi üvegkancsó restaurálása
Balázs Hugyecsek THE RESTORATION OF A GLASS PITCHER FROM THE I9 T H CENTURY The glass pitcher - which is the property of the Hungarian Open Air Museum - was probably made by blowing into its shape, with hot-worked outlet port, and applied handle in a glass-works in Northeast Hungary. The small scratches and hit-marks on the underbelly and the bottom suggest that the pitcher had been in use. Because the lute between the fractures became old and dark, and warping endangered the soundness of the object, aesthetic and structural restoration was reasonable. The curiosity of this work of art is that it turned out that in contrast to technical literature instead of cobalt it was tinted with copper. This could explain why it is assumed that the colour of glass objects faded after the 18 th century. We conducted particular material tests to examine the bubbles and inclusions in the glass. If these were badly stirred colouring matters we would have found important information about preparation techniques. But these are obviously ferric inclusions, so we can presume that they are only soiling matters in the glass. The glass pitcher of 64 pieces was in a restored, glued condition. I defined the contents of the two different types of lute by burning and dissolving tests, but more certain results could only be achieved with instrumental examination. The fractions came apart after soaking them in distilled water for a long time. After further soaking, most of the lute came unstuck of the fractures. With solvent I removed the remnants. After cleaning the pieces, the next step was to stick the pieces together with epoxy resin. While refilling the gaps between the 12 smaller parts and a bigger one - about 12cm long, I had to consider the varying thickness of the side and the different sizes of the gaps. I made the negatives of the object with the mixture of plastic and pliable, greasy silicon gum. The epoxy resin used at the completion has similar refraction to that of glass, but after adding the colouring matter it became opalescent, so I had to use darker coloured complementary material on the smaller sections, and lighter on the bigger ones. After the restoration, this work of art got into a better state both aesthetically and structurally, and it is displayed in the study collection of the Hungarian Open Air Museum. 219
