Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
VADÁSZI Erzsébet: Apafi Mihály tükre
According to Radisics, the Apafi mirror was made by a Turkish master; he put it in a separate category between Treasury and Par Excellence Amateur collection, which "developed from the idea of travelling; travellers purchased objects far from their country or when their returning home, in order to have something to remind them of the far-away lands." 30 Apafi, who was ordered by the Turkish Sultan to obtain the throne of Transylvania instead of sitting in his manor house of Ebesfalva, despite he preferred reading philosophy and studying mechanics; who knew what it was to be a captive of the Tatar khan and had no illusions about the Turks, either - had good reasons to look into his mirror every day and remember! Thank to Károly Csányi's efforts, the inscription of the lost case has remained. He described it in the exhibition catalogue of the art historical exhibition of Vasvár county: "Batthyány Antónia grófnenak, Petrechevich Horváth Lázár, 1840." (To Countess Antonia Batthyány, L.H.P, 1840). It is, however, impossible to find out how the mirror got to Lázár Petrechevich Horváth, who was a lawyer in Kolozsvár and later in Marosvásárhely, and founded the magazine called Honderű in 1843 in Pest. 31 The Batthyányi family nevertheless cherished the piece as an heirloom; it was lent for the "Exhibition of Ancient Transylvanian Relics", which was in the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts in 1931, by Count Lajos Batthyány himself. 32 The mirror seemed to have disappeared again until 1978 when it was bought from Tibor Kőváry by the Museum of Applied Arts; this is in short all we know about the history of the mirror. The tryptich shape also remains an open questions, thought it is again Radvánszky who first mentions the "altar-like structure", when describing the Munkács mirror from 1710. Looking at the shape of the frame of 17th century Orthodox icons that are now in Berlin 33 , St.Petersburg and in the monastery of Alexandrovo 34 , we may wonder whether Apafi's mirror was originally an icon. Were there pictures earlier in place of the mirror and on the set-in panels of the inner wings? The panels of the inner wings definitely show traces of nail rows. The unfinished surface of the fields reveal traces of chiselling so we may well suppose that earlier these field were covered with wood panels like in the case of small home altars of the Stroganoff-school 35 . On these home icons the top is decorated with a picture of the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit or the Regalement of the Angels; the centre shows the Virgin with the child Christ or with the young Christ, whereas the wings depict angels and saints or scenes from the Old Testament. For Apafi, who was a Protestant, these saints seemed to be far away so it was not accidentally that the painted panels were exchanged for mirrors. He appreciated presents, which is shown by the fact that he considered Leopold's mirror toy a real, esteemed imperial present. And he got gifts from the east as well. We know from his diary 36 that between 1662-1668 delegates from the Tatar khan came to his court 21 times. At first they arrived as "servants of his former lord" then "on their way to Vienna or the Holy Roman Emperor" or just for the sake of visiting and informing Apafi about the changes in the Khans person. They always came with presents, which was usually a horse. Since Apafi respects horses the most, especially if they are harnessed, we are accurately informed about each present. It was only once that the delegate came only with a letter from the new Tatar Khan ("Aldergereitül csak
