Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)
Veronika SZILÁGYI: Rebirth of the Gundel Centrepiece: Methodological Experiments in the Restoration of Enamelled Metalwork
took on the name “Bachruch de Király- kút”. At the turn of the century he had been active in issuing loans in the capital city and in converting historical loans, which proved invaluable to the municipality of Budapest. One of his daughters married Count Bálint Széchenyi in 1922. His son gained notoriety for his scandalous youthful behaviour, although nothing is known about his later years. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Károly Bachruch was not only a leading exponent of his profession, but was also an acknowledged member of social and artistic public life, as evinced by the titles conferred upon him. He was purveyor to the Royal Court and Chamber, a Court Adviser, and a Knight of the Order of Franz Joseph; he counted a large section of the nobility among his clients. The production site not only made factory items but also pieces of artistic metalwork; inquiring visitors were welcomed into the factory building itself, to a specially arranged showroom on the ground floor. Bachruch won numerous awards for his works at international exhibitions, most notably a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale in Paris in 1900 and the St. Louis Grand Prix of 1904. Among the items he produced, I would like to mention two in particular, because they share close similarities to the Gundel Centrepiece in terms of their techniques and decorative motifs (e.g. granulated filigree decoration, enamelled floral decorations). One is the reliquary bust of King Saint Stephen (1893-1896) in the Treasury of Kalocsa Cathedral,12 while the other is the decorative document holder produced for King Franz Joseph I (1898), now in the Kiscell Museum of the Budapest History Museum.13 The structure and technical characteristics of the Gundel Centrepiece This work of silversmithery is remarkable both for its size—60 cm tall, 83 cm in diameter, and originally weighing 30 kg—and its complex, carefully composed structure. The manufacturers came up with a variety of appropriate solutions (wires, straps, etc.) for fixing together the enamelled parts, which can be damaged if exposed to heat (such as from soldering) during assembly. As such fixtures can be undone, any damaged parts of the centrepiece could be easily replaced with new ones. This relative ease of replacement and repair meant that missing enamelled parts and other components could be substituted and supplemented during the restoration process. The lowermost part is a deep, round, hammered silver dish, constructed from several circular sectors, standing on five hollow cast lion’s feet. This unornamented “base” not only supports the ornately decorated main section of the centrepiece (which can now be removed from the base, though it was once fixed to it),14 but also conceals the screws on the underside of the main section. The richly ornamented central section is made of gilded silver. It consists of five deep, shell-shaped dishes, joined together with soldering, which are covered with blue enamel, with white counter enamel on the underside. (The enamel surface, poured into the pre-formed indentations and then fired, generates the effect of cloisonné enamelling—as was reported by the author of the article in the Pesti Hírlap newspaper.) The shell-shaped elements were fixed underneath with metal straps, and the visible spaces between them were filled in with a regular arrangement of rosettes, leaves 111
