Decorative Pitcher from Tata

Author: László Bulcsu
Photo: Marcell Szász

The first artefact in our monthly series for 2024 is a new acquisition: an unusually dimensioned, stunningly decorated, prize-winning pitcher. Dating to 1890, this matchless work of craftsmanship was the work of János Körmendy, grandfather of Tata pottery scholar Géza Körmendi, who describes his grandfather as, in fact, one of the town’s lesser-known potters. Though the reason for piece’s creation is unclear, family tradition holds that it won a medal at the famed Hungarian Millennial Exhibition of 1896. Until 2023, it belonged to Körmendy’s heirs and was featured in multiple exhibitions and publications. 

The pitcher is accorded especial attention in Géza Körmendi’s dual writings on the town’s pottery, published in 1965 and 1988, respectively. In the first, it appears in a stylised drawing with a brief caption. In the latter, it is mentioned in the summary, with some nostalgia, as the object against which the author’s family measured his childhood growth. In Volume 5 of the Hungarian Ethnographic Lexicon, published in the interim between the two monographs, it appears in an illustration. There, the caption contains two separate errors: the date is given as 1896, the date of the Millennial Exhibition, and the place of discovery as the Museum of Ethnography, known to be false given both the recent donation process, and the markings on the bottom of the piece, now listed in the object’s museum registry entry. A precise description of the pitcher is given in a 1995 publication on the collection of Tata’s Domokos Kuny Museum. The object was displayed both in the museum’s 1995 temporary exhibition The Pottery of Tata, and from 2000 until 2017 in the institution’s permanent exhibition. Later, it was returned to the family, until in 2023, at the request of Körmendy’s heirs, it was donated to the Museum of Ethnography. 

Apart from a basic adherence to the form of the traditional round-bellied water-hauling pitcher (known as the határi csörgős korsó), every feature of this piece is lavish in its execution. Its height is approximately 73 cm—other Tata pitchers of the type reach at most 60 to 65% of this figure. Its mouth is 9.5 cm and its base 25 cm in diameter. Though decorated in a manner typical of Tata pottery, according to Körmendi’s 1965 monograph, it is nonetheless unusual from this standpoint, as well. Normally, water-hauling pitchers of its type were relatively humbly painted and glazed: ‘For glazed vessels, pieces were first painted white to cover the colour of the clay. The only exception to this was the water-hauling pitcher, which was dipped in paint to cover the mouth and spout only. The glaze, too, covered these parts alone.’ By contrast, Körmendy’s pitcher is covered with white paint everywhere except the bottom. It is also copiously and symmetrically decorated. Its body is encircled by six parallel wreath motifs in blue hatching and green ‘rabbit ears,’ with leaf motifs running between them. A similar wreath motif encircles the region joining the body and neck, though more elongated in its lower half and with fewer blue lines. Inside, it is here one finds both the grating typical of such pitchers, and the rattling balls that aided in their cleaning. The leaf motifs continue at the neck, with another wreath running about the place where the mouth, neck, and handle meet. The pattern concludes with a leaf motif just below the mouth itself. On the handle are five flower motifs the professional literature identifies as daisies, the centre of the third bloom being the location of the pitcher’s drinking hole. At the end of the handle, a wreath-patterned incised inscription reads: ‘Tata 1890/ Körmendy/ János’. The date of manufacture here is clearly legible. Visible on the pitcher’s bottom are three distinct, hand-written markings: K-5, 76.87.1 (crossed out), and 77.17.45. Of these, the second and third are inventory numbers matching the record-keeping practices of mid-20th-century Hungarian museums.  This suggests that the museum in Tata intended to inventory the object in the past, even though the process was never finalized. 

János Körmendy’s decorative pitcher is a ‘useful member’ of the Museum of Ethnography’s Ceramics Collection from several perspectives. Despite its unusual size and ornamentation, it remains a good representation of the potterycraft of Tata, while its eventful life story makes it a versatile candidate for use in exhibitions.