Kovács Petronella (szerk.): Isis - Erdélyi magyar restaurátor füzetek 16. (Székelyudvarhely, 2016)
Sor Zita: Digitális nyomatok a gyűjteményekben
Although compared to other museum collections in Transylvania, the tin collection of the National History Museum of Transylvania in Cluj with its 213 tin objects, is outstanding both in number and quality of the items, - excepting some early 16th century and the guild objects - most of them are unstudied and unpublished. The exhibition presented a selection of the very rich and diverse tin objects of the collection, consisting mainly of pots, plates and bowls produced in local tin manufacturing centers (Sibiu, Braşov, Sighişoara, Bistriţa, Cluj), enriched by embossed plates from Nürnberg or tin objects produced in Wien and Wroclaw. The objects submitted to XRF study were selected from the exhibited objects, based on dilferent hypothesis. One of the questions of the study was targeting the manufacturer of the embossed plates, since most specialists addressing the issue consider that the high level, casted decoration known as Edelzinn technique was not used by the Transylvanian tin manufacturers and such items in Transylvanian collections originate from European trade. Analyses were performed on three items of the museums’ collection, the ‘Noah’ and the ‘Resurrection’ plates which have got the Nürnberger trademark and the unmarked ‘Memento mori’ plate. Based on the alloy compositions found by the investigation it was obvious that the ‘Memento mori’ plate has a different origin compared to the two other plates and its composition is closer to the alloy of the Transylvanian tin objects produced in the 17-18th century. The other presumption was concerning the pots made of different constituting elements. We assumed that the main part and the other elements of the pots might be produced in different workshops. At the same time, for a proper functionality and workability, the trunk and the other elements of the pot had a different alloy composition. Based on the four pots analyzed we could conclude that in each vessel the trunk was made of an alloy with higher tin content than the other elements of the pot. The use of different alloy compositions was not specific for a certain center or period, but seemed to be characteristic for every larger Transylvanian manufacture form the 16th to the 18th century. The study of pewter objects from different periods enabled also a better dating of the items. The analysis of a pot produced in Cluj at the beginning of the 16th century revealed the fact that in the first part of the century, tin casters of Cluj, similar to those from Nürnberg, used the best quality pewter of the so called Prob Zinn, tin alloyed with lead. Further analyses revealed that alloys introduced in the last third of 16th century were used all over the 17th century, and, after the pewter objects became less popular, the quality further decreased from the 18th century onward. In finding out if alloy composition can be connected to different Transylvanian workshops analyses gave us negative answer, since the Transylvanian manufacturers of a certain period had used the same alloy composition regardless to center or workshop. The instrumental analyses revealed details that brought closer to specialists the technical knowledge on tin art, one of the most popular industrial branches of the 16-18th century. Mária-Márta Kovács Art historian, museologist Translated by: Márta Guttmann Erika Tímea Nemes The painting technique of the mural paintings of the church of Bögöz The mural paintings made with fresco technique at the nave of the church of Bögöz are located in three horizontal registers under each other. Here as in many other churches in Szeklerland, the upper register of the northern wall is one of the main areas in the church; here the scenes of the legend of St. Ladislaus of Hungary can be seen. Under that the legend of St. Margaret of Antioch, and in the lowest register the scenes of the Last Judgement, St. Dorothy, veil of Veronica, St. Helena and St. Nicholas are depicted. The heights of the two upper registers are different, the uppermost with the St. Ladislaus legend is 200 cm, and the one under it is 170 cm high. The vertical sections are not coincident, either. During the production the plaster had been smoothed in both cases, and then the borders of screens were marked with red. First the background was painted, that was followed with the representation of the architectural elements, and finally the figures were depicted. It is visible on the pictures of both legends that they were made by more than one artist. Although the figure of St. Ladislaus was painted with special attention, the representation of his face and his clothing is not uniform. The character of his face differs in each picture. In the scenes of the St. Margaret legend the faces differ very much from each other also. In the first picture a simple, light colour ground and dark contours were used, but going further to the end of the story the faces got more elaborated. The plaster of the two upper registers has light colour, because of the big amount of lime and ground limestone. The strength of the plaster is given by the presence of the limestone pieces and the ground brick. The investigation of the pigments revealed that in the red area of the two upper registers red ochre, in the pink ones lime and red ochre, in the yellow ones ochre, in the grey ones carbon black of vegetal origin, and in the white ones lime was used. The figures are elongated, stylized with not appropriate ratio. Their faces are schematic, they don’t show real emotions. The hands are simplified, the gestures are lifeless. The background of the scenes is composed from only a few elements, trees, castles, columns. The ground is marked with a simple wavy line or with a bordering strip. The strong contours were used primarily for accentuation. The colours aren’t naturalistic. The composition of groups is integrative; the figures are represented behind each other. 138
