Horváth Attila – Solymos Ede szerk.: Cumania 2. Ethnographia (Bács-Kiskun Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei, Kecskemét, 1974)

J. Vorák: Kolompár Kálmánné kiskunhalasi cigányasszony kézimunkái

In recent years I had talks with Mrs. Kálmán Kolompár on several occasions, however this time already in the Museum. First when she brought the bodice she wore when we first met. I took her over the gallery, showing her what we preserved, telling her that also her cloth would get there. She showed no trace of awkwardness. Maybe the fact that her cloth got to the Museum aroused her self-respect, since the two other cloths she made without a request on the part of the Museum. With one of these she appeared in spring 1964. She spread it out before me and asserted that it was a cloth used at baptism. A child covered up with it when taken to be christened would be lucky all through his life. I protested, saying that we did not ask for the cloth and that I could not buy it from her. She answered that that I need not, she made it for a present, let us preserve it, too. In the end I paid her Ft 40.— for the cloth. We often had talks afterwards, I made notes of the information supplied by her. What she said never seemed satisfactory, because except for her naming the figures on the cloths and emphatically asserting that this was lucky and that was lucky and that other one even more lucky, I parctically did not get anywhere with her. All the same, I also took over the third cloth which she brought to the Museum in 1967. About that she just said that it was a luck-cloth, she had made it for us so that Kálmán KOLOMPÁR on the pattern of the traditional. Kiskunhalas blouses. Worn „Kalocsa" embroidery, with appliquéd factory-printed „Dirndl" material Adorned with original coloured embroidery by Mrs. Kálmán Kolompát. Colours of the embroidery cotton: goldenyellow, vivid red, dark blue Shoulder breadth: 60 cm. length of sleeve 47 cm , circumference at hem-line: 152 cm. Purchased 1968- 64.3.2. — Bodice — Made (in the 1920s?) as a traditional. Kiskunhalas peasant bodice by a Hungarian seamstress Flax linen, with shoulder patches and seams. Its ruff is of worn factory-made lace, the sleeves are lengthened with worn eyelet embroidery. Stitched and embroidered with individual taste by Mrs. Kálmán Kolompár. Colours of thread : light yellow, orange, pale greenish turqoise, dark blue, vivid red, bordeaux, pink. Shoulder breadth: 49 cm., length of sleeve: 24 cm., circumference at hem-line: 132 cm. Purchased 1963. 67.14.1. — Gipsy pocket: „zsaba" — Form and finish differ from traditional. Its back part is made of a worn embroidered piece of a kitchen-wall splash-guard. Sewn of a worn piece of white linen in the manner of a bag with a flap folding back. Its surface is covered with Mrs. Kolompár's primitive designs. Colours of thread: vivid red, bright green, yellow. Its binding tape is a piece torn off some yellow, rayon fabric and left unseamed. Size : 26 X 24 cm. Mrs. Kolompár wore it in the market, bound round the left side of her waist. Made in 1966. Purchased 1967. 64.3.1. — Embroidered cloth. By Mrs. Kolompár's desigwe have luck, too. Again I feel it necessary to stress that we did not ask for that cloth either, we did not give her any stimulation whatsoever to make either that or the former one. The latter two cloths we received rather doubtfully and only the peculiar primitive design in them moved us to take them. For the third cloth Mrs. Kolompár received Ft 40.— again. So small a sum that it could hardly inspire her to make them. The two bodices and the „zsaba" of not the traditional character of other gipsy pockets which we acquired in the meantime, I saw on her as she wore them in the street and in the market and so I asked her to sell them. Mrs. Kolompár drawing Mrs. Kolompár's self-made gipsy pocket, the „zsaba" first caught my attention in a Sunday weekly market in summer 1967. (Fig. 3.). She wore it on the left side over the skirt, bound round her vaist with strings. All our gipsy women in Kiskunhalas wear the „zsaba" (Fig. 2.). The „zsaba" is an oblong, flat kind of bag, cut of linen, supplied with a folding and buttoning lap. It can be made of any kind of fabric. On its outer side the gipsy women apply hanging bunches of coloured strings in a way that, passing downwards from the upper edge, these cover the nation: a „wedding cloth". — Coarse flax linen, hemmed with blanket stitches. Covered with original designs, embroidered with coloured thread. Colours of the applied embroidery cotton : vivid red, dark blue, vivid green, bordeaux, pink. Made as a wedding present for Patricia Mácsai. Presented to the Museum in 1963 by Mrs. János Mácsai. Size: 55 X 55 cm. 64.3.3. —• Embroidered cloth. By the designation of Mrs. Kolompár, a „baptismal cloth". — Made of coarse white linen embroidered with rayon-silk thread. Its stitches are whipping and tacking stitches. Edges at the bottom and at the top are folded back and stitched down in a waveline for adornment. The whole piece is covered with Mrs. Kolompár's characteristic embroidered designs. Colour of the applied threads : vivid red, vivid green, dark blue, golden yellow, purplish bordeaux. Made and offered to the Museum by Mrs. Kálmán Kolompár. Purchase, prize: Ft. 40. Size: 90 X 90 cm. 67.20.1. — Embroidered cloth. By Mrs. Kolompár's designation, a „gift cloth". (According to her statement, she stitched luck in it, just as in the first two ones.)

— Made of coarse white linen, embroidered with coloured thread. Covered with characteristic embroidered figures of Mrs. Kolompár. Upper and lower edges and both sides framed with a wave-line. Colours of the thread : red, blue, green and yellow. Made and offered to the Museum by Mrs. Kálmán Kolompár. Purchased 1967, price: Ft. 40. Size: 76 X 44 cm.