Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 30. (Budapest, 2016)

Edit DARABOS: Altera Theca continens.A Research Into Historical Leather Cases made for Esterhazy Treasury Items

seven or eight cases (mostly empty) that were made for bowl-shaped items, which belong in the same group. There are cases for similar bowl-shaped objects in the group of cases with rows of leaves, which implies that when the new treasury items were made, after the year 1696, the number of cases increased further, mainly with those from the group of cases with rows of leaves.

The cases for jewellery sets and coins in the Forchtenstein treasury deserve separate treatment. Although a number of inventories make reference to jewellery cases, these are not the same as the nine cases located in

16. Volume from the library of Ferenc III Nádasdy, photograph taken for the 1882 Book Exhibition Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, Archive, FLT2773

Forchtenstein today.70 Based on their description, it would seem justifiable to identify them with the seven red jewellery cases that feature in an inventory made in 1666.71 The jewellery cases, which today remain empty, had small indentations made in them to hold necklaces, pendants and ear pendants, hair pins, rings and clasps. The way they were arranged, however, does not match any description in the inventory. Among the red or reddish-brown leather- bound, gilded, paper-based cases, eight can be associated with the same workshop. (Fig. 15) Besides being intrinsically spectacular, the ornately gilded cases share links with a book that was once owned by Ferenc Nádasdy. Just like his treasury items, the books from Nádasdy’s library have ended up dispersed far and wide, although a number of volumes can be identified from their possessor’s inscriptions and bookplates.72 The item in question from the Nádasdy library is a work by György Káldi titled Az vasárnapokra való prédikációknak első része [Sunday sermons, part one], issued in Pozsony in 1631, which was probably purchased by or given as a present to Nádasdy after his conversion to Catholicism in 1642. On the front of the ornamental binding, the letters of Jesus (IHS) appear in a medallion in the central decoration, while those of the Virgin Mary (MA) are on the back cover. (Fig. 16) On the title page, next to Nádasdy’s possessor’s inscription - exlibris Comiti Francisci de Nadasd - is the possessor’s inscription of the Servite monks in Lorettom (Loretto, Austria). The Nádasdy book and the jewellery boxes are linked by having three types of tools in common (two rolls or fillets and a pomegranate flower tendril).73 These matching tools do not, however, provide any direct clue as to the date of the cases or the book45