Vezető a Déri Múzeum kiállításaihoz II. A Déri gyűjtemények. 2. javított kiadás (Debrecen, 2001)

THE CRAFT OF TIN AND 230 BRONZE CASTING AND THE GOLDSMITH'S CRAFT The craft of tin casting became important in Europe in the 16th through the 17th centuries. At first, pewter objects conformed to the shapes of vessels made of precious metal. The special style for pewter was discovered and established during the Renaissance. In the beginning, they were the decorations on the tables of aristocratic households but from the 17th century on they came in civic use, too. Church pewter also remained extant. The noble yet simple pewter artifacts were especially suitable for the puritan principles advocated by the Reformed Church. In the Baroque Age, pewter became more decorated, and it was in this period that different forms of vessels for guilds developed. Then, in the Rococo period, a new style appeared, namely, the style of twisted cleft vessels. Meanwhile, in the church and in the guilds, the century-old forms and decorations remained the same. Finally, in the classicist period, noble, simple, and smooth lines replaced the restless forms of the previous era. However, the 17th century was already the period of decline and decay in the tin casting craft. In Hungary, the earliest records available about the craft of tin casting date back to the 16th century. In Transylvania, it was Nagyszeben, Brassó, Kolozsvár, and Segesvár that were renowned tin casting centers, while in the region called Felvidék [appr. the Highlands, verbatim Upper Hungary] Kassa, Eperjes, Lőcse, and Pozsony were the most important bases of the trade. In the Trans-Danubian part of the country, tin foundries were located in Pest, Buda, Győr, and Sopron. According to the archives, there were tin founders and tinsmiths working also in Debrecen and Miskolc. Most of the exhibits are the works of masters from the Highlands and Transylvania. The church objects from the 17th—18th centuries in