Baroque pottery in Hungary [antikvár]

In Europe the manufacture of faience spread alsó to the territory of Hungary. In the course of the i8th century several ceramic factories of varying size were established. The present study deals with the products of the two most outstanding factories-Holics (now Holíc, Czechoslovakia) and Tata. One of the significant features of the Holics factory may be that it was the earliest foundation of its kind in the domains of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Moreover, it was from these works that the later Hungárián faience factories derived their inspiration. It was from here that the great Proskau (now Prószków, Poland) works as well as other Austrian and Czech factories took their origin, but the factories which were to flourish later inside present-day Hungary were alsó closely connected with Holics, as illustrated by the example of Tata in the first place. There are fundamental difFerences between the conditions under which the two factories came into existence. Though both were the fruit of the Baroque culture that developed in the i8th century, Holics owed its foundation to the economic aspirations of the Hapsburg dynasty, while Tata was established by a family of the Hungárián aristocracy, the Counts Esterházy who resided at Tata. The chief patrons and customers of Holics were the dynasty, the aristocracy and the prelates of the Monarchy, while the bourgeoisie and the lesser nobility came only in the second place. The Tata factory, on the other hand, worked chiefly for the Esterházy family and the narrow circle of the Hungárián landowners. Later, in the period when faience production feli into a noticeable decline all over Europe, Holics turnéd more freely to less exacting and more extensive markets; its temporary survival could nevertheless be ensured only by the manufacture of earthen ware imitating English patterns. In the foundation of both factories experts from western countries cooperated; these men and their descendants settled down and gradually adapted themselves to local conditions. The masters who adjusted their work to the tastes of their patrons later lent a certain local colour to the faience products of Holics and Tata which at the outset had followed western, mostly French,