Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 31. (Budapest, 2017)
Ildikó PANDUR: Restoration of Metalwork from the Esterházy Treasury in the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts: Past, Present and Future
The history of the Esterházy treasury spans a period of nearly half a millennium, to the middle of the sixteenth century. In the last hundred years, apart from a few wartime years, it has been inextricably bound up with one public collection, the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts. Several generations of museum staff have devoted continuous attention and professional skill to maintaining the condition of these artworks. In permanent and temporary exhibitions, the public has also got the chance to see the outcome of these efforts.56 Members of the Esterházy family put their trust in the museum during the war and the excavation, and again very recently. Melinda Ottrubay Esterházy paid a notable and joyful visit to the museum in the late 1990s when she inspected the restored artworks, and friendly and fruitful collaboration led to artworks remaining in Forchtenstein being reunited with treasures taken to Budapest for an exhibition in the museum in 2006.57 This exhibition devoted a whole section to the story of their restoration, showing some pieces still in a damaged condition, and paying respects to the restorers, past and present, who have applied the most advanced methods available in their respective times to bring unrecognizable wrecks into a state capable of public display, and to ensure their long-term survival. NOTES 1 I presented a talk with a similar title at the 40th Nemzetközi Restaurátor Konferencia [International Restorer Conference] in the Hungarian National Museum on 11 November 2015. 2 I naturally consider these to apply equally to items requiring restoration in other areas—textiles, ceramics, paper-leather and furniture. 3 On this, see Horváth, Hilda: Nemzeti kincstárunk: az Esterházy hercegi kincstár 20. századi története. [Our National Treasure: The Esterházy Princes’ Treasury in the 20th Century], Iparművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2014. (hereinafter Horváth 2014). 4 Prince Pál Esterházy put the ‘movable and immovable properties’ of the Forchtenstein branch of the family into an inalienable and indivisible fideicommissum. (One known deviation from the rule was Prince Miklós III Esterházy’s sale of some items of costume—garments, jewellery and insignia—by auction at Christies of London on 29 March 1867.) 5 The ‘gold decree’ of 1946 required that ‘a family must declare and put under closed deposit its gold objects weighing more than 500 grams if not used for personal purposes or held for religious reasons.’ See ‘A magyar köztársaság kormányának 8.400/1946. M.E. számú rendelete a külföldi fizetési eszközök és követelések, a külföldi értékpapírok és az arany forgalmának, valamint a fizetési eszközök kivételének újabb szabályozása tárgyában..’ [Hungarian government decree no. 8.400/1946. M.E. on new rules concerning foreign currency and debts, trade of foreign securities and gold and the export of currency], Igazságügyi Közlöny LV, 1946, pp. 290- 293. See Horváth 2014, p. 49. 6 See Horváth 2014, p. 51. 7 Henszlmann, Imre - Bubics, Zsigmond: A magyar- országi árvízkárosultak javára Budapesten Gf. Károlyi Alajos palotájában 1876. évi májusban rendezett müipari és történelmi emlék-kiállítás tárgyainak lajstroma [List of items of the historical exhibition held in the palace of Count Alajos Károlyi Budapest in May 1876 in aid of the victims of the flood in Hungary], prepared for publication by Imre Szalay, Budapest, 1876. 88
