Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)

LÁSZLÓ Emőke: Hímzett magyar oltárterítők a 18. század első feléből

EMŐKE LÁSZLÓ EMBROIDERED HUNGARIAN ALTAR TABLECLOTHS FROM THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY The textile collection of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts has almost three hundred Hungarian linens from the 17th-18th centuries and some from the end of the 16th century, embroidered in gold, silver and silk threads. When enlisting the embroideries, five borders have been found which were extremely similar, almost identical concerning the structure of the decoration, the shape and colours of the motifs. Except for one, they were fragments. However, with the help of the complete one - which was the earliest in the collection, bought in 1902 in Kolozsvár - they could be identified as being the fragments of altar tablecloths. Their decoration is a simple border ornament, limited to the bottom edge of the altar tablecloth. They are monochrome - the colour has already faded to light pink though originally most of them were embroidered in mauve red silk and silver threads, except for the latest and the only dated (1763) one. The border of the tablecloths are decorated with two alternating types of flowers, the favourites of Hungarian embroideries: the full blossom rose seen from above - called rosette - and the tulip blossom, seen from the side. They are connected with a slightly wavy foliage, with several tiny, symmetrical, closed tulips springing from it. The decoration is closed with a straight line at the bottom. Identical, tiny, closed tulips spring from the line towards the edge. The rose in Antique art was the symbol of beauty, love and happy marriage. In the Middle Ages, a new, slightly religious meaning was added to the previous ones: the mysterious rose, "rosa Mystica" was the symbol of Virgin Mary. Since that time, the rose was a favourite flower of the gardens of castles, manors and monasteries in Hungary. At the same time, it was also the sacred flower of the Islam, thus, from the Age of the Turkish reign, its significance still grew. Sometimes it is replaced by a round pomegranate in the pattern, with the lattice decoration of the centre marking the thick network of pomegranate seeds. The merging of the two motifs can best be shown by a later, special Hungarian term for a Kalotaszeg motif called "granate rosy"

1 Tulip arrived in Europe through the Turks and in the 16th-17th century Holland became the centre of tulip cultivation. It was Clusius from the Netherlands who brought the flower to Hungary, namely to the Németújvár garden of Boldizsár Batthyányi, where he published his work entitled The Plants of Pannónia in 1583, introducing several brands of the same flower.

2 In decorative arts, all flowers with three or five tipped petals and a drop-shaped inner seed are called tulips. Their resemblance to pomegranate-pineapple motifs that often appear on Renaissance silk fabrics is considerable, which is not suprising if we are aware of the fact that Oriental and West-European silk fabrics