Restoration of the fresco with lion in the Esztergom royal castle chapel
MúzeumCafé 3.
In 2000 the State National Monument Restorers’ Centre requested tenders for the restoration of the medieval and Renaissance frescos in the royal castle of Esztergom. The castle resisted the Mongol attack in 1241, but Ottoman forces occupied it in 1543, following which it was fought over until being liberated in 1683. After the great siege of 1595 the top levels of the central keep collapsed to the first floor, filling it in completely. Not until 340 years later, in 1934-35, during preparations for the Year of Saint Stephen in 1938, were the remaining parts of the castle, its magnificent Gothic chapel and the first floor halls of the keep fully explored. Several hundred pieces preserved the fragments of the former fresco among the collapsed stonework. Research producing significant new results since 2001 has been based on close and continuous co-operation between restorers and art historians. In this way a fresco depicting the Tree of Life in a circular palmette frame with a stately lion stepping before it was explored and displayed, receiving a new art-historical evaluation. A second painting including the lion was probably made for the 1186 wedding of King Béla III and Margaret Capet, daughter of the King of France. The new queen adopted the practice introduced in her homeland, in Philip II’s Parisian court, whereby frescos replaced the flammable silk tapestry decorations in the interior of royal buildings. The fresco maintained the depictions of the silk tapestries, hence the motif of the lion stepping in front of the Tree of Life.