Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)
Zsombor JÉKELY: The Museum of Applied Arts in 2016
lection during nationalization of the period after 1949. Objects where the legal status is not clear, or where the Hungarian state cannot prove legal ownership must be returned to the descendants. This mainly affects objects which were originally held as deposits, and were then added to the collections of state museums, usually during the 1950s. Already in 2014, a number of objects were returned from the collections of the Museum of Applied Arts to descendants of the Sigray family. In 2016, claims submitted by the Károlyi family, the Zichy family and the Hunyady family were evaluated by the Museum, leading to increased research on provenance. At the same time, the government has also made a decision to transfer certain objects from the Museum of Applied Arts back to their historic locations, with no effect on their ownership by the Hungarian state. Thus Baroque furniture originating from the Festetics Palace at Keszthely was transferred there, and is now managed by the Helikon Palace Museum. Objects once in the property of the Esterházy Princes are to be transferred to the Esterházy Palace at Fertőd. During 2016, the Museum already transferred all of the furniture and other objects coming from the Esterházy palaces of Buda and Sopron—most of these can indeed be traced back to the Palace at Fertőd. Also in 2016, the transfer of objects belonging to the Esterházy treasury began as well. This famous treasury of the Esterházy Princes had been held at the castle of Fraknó (now Forchtenstein, Austria), and has been at the Museum of Applied Arts since 1919. The transfer was not completed in the calendar year of 2016, but as a result of these government decisions, a total of 144 objects have already been transferred to these two institutions. Publications In terms of publications, the most important book appeared at the very beginning of the year: it is a volume collecting the proceedings of the international conference dedicated to Ödön Lechner. The English- language volume contains most of the material presented at the international conference held in November 2014. The richly illustrated volume was edited by Zsombor Jékely, and it represents an important step in the study of the Museum’s architect, as well as of museum architecture and attempts for the creation of national architectural styles during the second half of the nineteenth century. The most important exhibition of 2016, In the Mood for Colours was only accompanied by a brochure but no catalogue, however, the objects in the exhibition are now all published online in the Museum’s collection database (jhttp://collections.imm.hu). Our exhibitions abroad—the exhibition of Herend porcelain in Japan as well as the selection of Ottoman Turkish highlights show at Sharjah—were both accompanied by exhibition catalogues, which were realized in cooperation with the staff of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts. Finally, the exhibition about contemporary bicycle design (Bike- ology), which was realized in cooperation with the Hungarian Museum of Science, Technology and Transport, was accompanied by a catalogue published in Hungarian and English as well. Publications in 2016: Ödön Lechner in Context. Studies of the international conference on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ödön Lechner’s 161
