Hungarian Jewellery of the Past [antikvár]

Introduction The art of the Hungárián goldsmith flourished throughout four historically important centuries, and indeed longer. Already in 1342, when Louis the Great of the house of Anjou ascended the throne of Hungary, it had reached that high level of Gothic magnificence which it was to maintain not only throughout the earlier fifteenth century, under Sigismund of Luxembourg, but until, if not after, the death of Matthias Corvínus in 1490. The extent of its international reputation can be judged from the fact that among contemporary documents which referred to its excellence are accounts from Germany, Italy and Francé by writers who described with enthusiasm the beauty of those specimens of the work of Hungárián goldsmiths which had reached their countries as betrothal or wedding presents, as gifts marking the successful con-clusions of missions or peace treaties, or simply as votive offerings. Large ornamental vessels, dishes, pitchers, cups, chalices and crosses as well as numerous pieces of jewellery are recorded as having been transported to places far beyond the Hungárián frontiers. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during the hundred and fifty years of the Turkish occupation, Hungárián goldsmiths moved out of Buda and settled in the north of Hungary and in Transylvania, where there emerged that distinctive type of work, mainly in the form of jewellery, which is known as "Transylvanian enamel". Jewels of this type, brilliant with coloured enamels and scintillating with precious stones, provided focal points in the dress of the Hungárián nobility and the splendid state robes of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The finest surviving examples of this particular art come from the courts of the Transylvanian princes and from the mansions of Hungárián nobles. In the eighteenth century Hungárián goldsmiths' work was, naturally, strongly influenced by Austrian and Germán Baroque art, with the result that by the beginning of the nineteenth century it had lost its Hungárián character to such an extent as to have become difficult to recognize. Hungary's output of gold in the high medieval period was the largest in Europe and it was precisely this wealth of precious metals which accounted for the splendour of the work of Hungárián goldsmiths. Royal edicts and sumptuary laws played, of course, their part in regulating the making of gold and silver objects as well as their exporta-tion to foreign countries. For centuries on end successive members of the Hungárián