The Kalotaszeg region comprises about 40 villages in the mountains that separate the Transylvanian Basin from the Great Plain in Hungary. In the second half of the 19th century folk art there ?flourished in the richest and most varied forms?, including costume, painted furniture, woodcarving, embroidery, weaving and a great many genres producing minor objects, vocal and instrumental music, dance, and festive customs, Budapest?s Museum of Ethnography says on its website.
Zsigmond Gyarmathy, the director of the Bánffyhunyad Savings Bank, in present-day Huedin, did much to raise the profile of the folk art of Kalotaszeg together with his wife Etelka. They organised exhibitions of the folk art in Hungary and abroad, bringing it to the 1885 National Exhibition and Fair and the 1896 Millenary Exhibition.
