Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)

Edit DARABOS: Blomstermarmor, klistermarmor. Modern Danish endpapers in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts

(goatskin) and leather inlay technique, but also turns his attention to the decorativeness and role of the half-bindings. The exhibition’s invitation to artists encouraged submissions of decorative paper.8 'For their half-bindings the Danes used modern ribbed paper, which has a very decorated effect. Hitherto the best paper for this purpose had been prepared and used by the Munich artist Otto Eckmann, who is not far behind the Danish craftsmen in this respect, and had achieved brilliant results. ’9 These several lines about half-bindings demonstrate that marbled and paste papers, until then used only for half-bindings and endpapers, had gained attention for their own independent aesthetic value. Although among modern, Art Nouveau marbled papers, the best known are associated with the Viennese Art Nouveau artists Koloman Moser and Leopold Stolba, the rebirth of the art form can be dated to this much earlier period, when Meier- Graefe wrote his article. The reference to Eckmann in the quote above set off a debate over who was the originator of a certain marbling technique, which we will return to in a detailed discussion later in this study.

The Budapest Museum of Applied Arts’ acquisition of primarily French and British modern works of applied arts (furniture, ceramics, metal and leather works, and bookbindings was facilitated by the contemporary purchases and the excellent professional connections of Jenő Radisics, the museum’s director. His study trip to northern European countries in 1897 played an instrumental role in the transformation of his collecting concept. Inspired by what he had seen, Radisics devoted considerable attention to the applied arts of the northern countries, in which the integral connection

between folk art, a modern creative approach and craftsmanship was manifest.

The Museum of Applied Arts’ collection of endpapers contains a large number of modern sheets, with those acquired as a result of Jenő Radisics’s trip north perhaps of special interest.10 The most important stop on his journey was the 1897 Allmänna konst- och industriutställningen (General Art and Industrial Exposition) in Stockholm, where Danish and Norwegian exhibitors played a prominent role alongside their Swedish colleagues." The exhibits of works of Danish book art—including the creations of the Danish Book-craft Society Foreningfor Boghaandvxrk—were accompanied by a catalogue designed by Hans Tegner.12 The bindings presented by the society can be divided into two groups: 1) those designed by applied artists (to mention only the most famous: Thorvald Bin- desboll, Elise Constantin-Hansen, August Andreas Jerndorff and Hans Tegner) but executed by bookbinders; 2) those both designed and made by these same bookbinders (Jacob Baths, Immanuel Petersen, Jacob Ludwig Flyge and Anker Kyster). The exhibition catalogue tells us that, in addition to his leather and half-leather bindings, Kyster also exhibited marbled papers, which were labelled Marmoreret Papir in the catalogue without any further designation.13

Radisics bought several works from the Stockholm exposition, with Frida Hansen’s tapestry Pentecost Choir undeniably the most important.14 Documents housed in the Museum of Applied Arts reveal that the exposition staged between 13 May and 3 October 1897 was nearing its end when Radisics purchased one hundred marbled endpapers (marmoriertes Papier) for 85 crowns from Danish bookbinder Anker

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