Lot 99

Hungaria, Abraham Ortelius, Antwerp, 1602, Private Collection PROPERTY OF A NEW YORK FAMILY The blossoming of the Hungarian goldsmith's art in the 16th and 17th centuries is closely linked with the social, political and economic struggles during that period. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, when the Ottomans defeated the Hungarian forces of King Lájos II, who died on the field along with many members of the high clergy and aristocracy, the country fractured into three realms. The northern and western lands, which maintained the name Royal Hungary, fell under Habsburg control, while the central plains along with Buda, the former capital, were captured and occupied by the Turks. Finally, the death of Transylvanian Bishop Statileo János in 1542 allowed the fledgling Transylvanian court, which survived due to its ongoing tributes to the Sultan, to seize the Church's unoccupied holdings in the region and establish itself as an independent political entity. It was in Transylvania that the tradition of Hungarian goldsmithing survived. During the middle ages, Buda had been the most important local center for metalwork. However, the Turkish armies had laid the city and its region to waste, and most craftsmen and guild members fled to the safety of urban centers in the Christian principality of Transylvania. These cities, including Lócse, Debrecen, Kolozsvár, Brassó, and Nagyszeben became the new centers of Hungarian metalwork. Additionally, Transylvania had long been recognized throughout Europe as a land rich with deposits of precious metals, and mining continued throughout the early modern period, providing both a source of wealth to the Princes and a source of materials for the craftsmen. This extraordinary collection reflects the technical skill and creativity of the Hungarian Renaissance and Baroque goldsmiths, and includes objects representing the best work of the genre.

A HUNGARIAN PARCEL-GILT SILVER BEAKER

TRANSYLVANIA, CIRCA 1650, MAKER'S MARK CK MONOGRAM

Details

A HUNGARIAN PARCEL-GILT SILVER BEAKER
TRANSYLVANIA, CIRCA 1650, MAKER'S MARK CK MONOGRAM
Flaring cylindrical on a trumpet foot, repoussé and chased all over with scenes of hunting dogs in a woodland under a border of strapwork enclosing floral motifs all on a matted ground, marked under base
7½ in. (19.2 cm.) high; 9 oz. (286 gr.)

Literature

László Mravik, "Sacco di Budapest" and Depredation of Hungary, 1938-1949, 1998, illus. no. 19982, p. 337 (incorrectly indentified as marked by György Kozák)

Exhibited

Exhibition of Old Silver, Museum of Applied Art, Budapest, 1927, no. 199
Exhibition of Old Cultural Pieces from Transylvania, Museum of Applied Art, Budapest, 1931, no. 171

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Lot Essay

The maker's mark under the base is very similar to that of Erhardus Wüstemann who worked in Lócse, Hungary from 1612 until 1667. A silver-gilt tazza by Wüstemann is illustrated in Baroque Splendor: The Art of the Hungarian Goldsmith, 1994, no. 9, p. 101. The tazza is repoussé and chased with a genre scene from a fairy tale. The woodland background contains hunting dogs very similar to those on the present example.

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