Begovácz Rózsa – Burján István – Vándor Andrea: Folk Art in Baranya County (Pécs, 2008)

The Department of Ethnography of Janus Pannonius Museum

The Department of Ethnography of Janus Pannonius Museum The material and archival collection of the Department of Ethnography - around 35000 objects, 60000 photos, 1800 issues in the documentation department - has been accumulated during the past 100 years. The first turning point in the history of the ethnographical collection was the year 1907. The National Exhibition and Fair in Pécs was opened, where a room, a kitchen and farm buildings from the Ormánság together with the national costume of the region were shown. After closing the display the objects were taken to the ethnographical collection of the City Museum. The Baranya County Museum also owned a significant ethnographical collection: Lajos Igaz had conducted ethnographical collections in the beginning of the 30s, the material of which became the basic unit of the County Museum established in 1938. The third important collection of objects at the Department of Ethnography is a part of the collection assembled by the Zsolnay sisters, Júlia and Teréz from the 1870s. The Zsolnay sisters mostly gathered objects from the surroundings of Pécs, but pieces of pottery from Transsylvania and the former Upper Hungary are also represented in the collection. Júlia and Teréz Zsolnay's work was inspired on the one hand by a growing interest in objects used by the peasantry, on the other hand by practical reasons: the motifs of ethnographical objects were utilized in creating ceramic designs for the Zsolnay Factory. More than ten thousand textiles and around one hundred and fifty pieces of pottery are preserved in Janus Pannonius Museum dating back to this early period of the collection's history. Ethnographical collections were motivated both by the urge of the „last moment" already at the beginnings of ethnography, and the need to save cultural goods apparently getting lost in a society transforming and modernizing. Another move of the collections was the quest for and the invention of a „Hungarian style" to be created by the use of folk motifs. Ethnographical collections concentrating on archaic traits selected a peculiarly colourful material - in the selection of the 5