Csiffáry Gergely: A bélapátfalvi keménycserép - Studia Agriensia 18. (Eger, 1997)
ÖSSZEGZÉS - Gergely Csiffáry: The history of the earthenware factory in Bélapátfalva
producing earthenware between 1843 and 1846 but he went bankrupt so did the renters who followed him. Since 1850 the Földváry brothers rented the factory and carried out significant buildings probably by means of the financial support of the owner seminary. Between 1850 and 1855 the finished and enlarged flint ware factory operated on wood-burning like the rest of the factories in Hungary at that time. It wasn’t an out of date factory only in comparison with the Austrian, German and Czech factories where coal was used instead of wood and steam machines instead of using water energy. Altogether, the industrial infrastructure carried out in the middle of the 19th century didn’t change for about seventy years. The continuous modernisation of the factory was impossible because of using wood-burning techniques. The owner seminary made the renters buy the wood from its forests at a fixed price. The opposing interests of the owners and the renters also made the continuous modernisation impossible. The modernisation was blocked by the renting system, but the owners didn’t want to change it. The long range crisis of the vessel producing industry in Hungary in the 1890’s had a remarkable effect on the operation of the works in Bélapátfalva. By this time it turned out that without appropriate raw material, the feldspar containing so called English flint ware cannot be produced in Hungary, though the calcite containing vessel which was a good quality product, and can be fired at a low temperature was possible to be produced. Because of the lower quality of Hungary’s earthen vessel products more emphasis was put on the outlook of the products. The earthen vessels were painted under the glaze as the white coloured earthen vessels were able to be decorated. Because of this the so called Hungarian style vessels were produced series from 1880 by the Hungarian factories. This technique satisfied the producer as well as the customer. The customer received a lively coloured vessel, so the producers weren’t inspired to use a more modern technique, because the decoration and the glaze could be fired at the same time, therefore the producing was more cost effective. Consequently the factory in Bélapátfalva also started to produce ornamental vessels from the 1860s. The typical vessel painting method of Bélapátfalva came into existence when the Dubravszky family rented the factory. The products of the factory were very popular. But while the Hungarian factories produced painted ornamental vessels the Austrian and German products and the Czech porcelain took the place of the vessels of the national factories in the market. It lead to rivalry between the factories. The factory in Bélapátfalva in order to be able to sell its products had to cut its prices, therefore causing further losses. The renters tried to help this 162
