Folia archeologica 47.

Kovács S. Tibor: Nefritlapokkal kirakott török farmatring a 17. századból

TURKISH CRUPPER INLAID WITH NEPHRITE PLAQUES In 1995 the Hungarian National Museum purchased a 17th century crupper inlaid with nephrite plaques (Fig. 1 ). The harness, consisting of two paralíel leather straps, is decorated with two pairs of eight silver gilt mounts, each with either a leaf shaped ornament inset with almandine or a round nephrite plaque soldered onto it. The nephrite plaque was inlaid with small leafed branches of gold (Fig. 2). The lower half of the crupper is decorated with a large oval nephrite plaque inset with twenty-one almandines (Fig. 3). The mounts are also decorated with turquoise set in a flower-leaf shaped bezel. The harness is decorated with a row of tassels along its borders. The nephrite plaques would suggest that the crupper had been made in an Ottoman workshop in the mid17th century. Turkish weapons inlaid with nephrite plaques first appeared in Hungarian ownership in the late 16th century. One excellent example is the ceremonial mace of Zsigmond Báthory, Prince of Transylvania (1588-1598, 1600-1602) (Fig. 4). According to the inventories and inheritance lists from the 17th century, only the prices of Transylvania had owned Turkish harnesses ornamented with nephrite. Prince Gábor Bethlen (1613-1629) presented Gustav Adolph II, King of Sweden, with a harness ornamented with nephrite plaques. In 1651 Prince György Rákóczi II (1648-1660) gave a horse and a complete harness with nephrite and rubies to Frederick of Pfalz, the Elector of Brandenburg. The 1684 ancl 1688 inventories of the Munkács castle list a number of Turkish harnesses, as well as saddles and horsecloths. These were originally in the possession of the Rákóczi, Thököly and Zrínyi families. The Austrian troops occupied Munkács in 1688 and they simply carted off these pieces, together with other artworks, to Vienna. The Turkish crupper probably disappeared from this private collection at this time or during the Turkish wars between 1683-1699. A Turkish saddle inlaid with nephrite plaques is known from the Prince Esterházy Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (Figs. 5-6). The leaf shaped ornaments are identical to the ones on the crupper, suggesting that they had been produced in the same workshop. This crupper too had probably belonged to a similar saddle. The rarity and uniqueness of this artwork is underlined by the fact that comparable harnesses inlaid with nephrite plaques are not known from Hungary, either from public or private collections. Tibor Kovács S.