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The Baroque era conjures up images of opulence in all the arts. It was a time when the decorative arts in particular flourished, with lavish attention paid to every object, from saltcellars to elaborate banquet tables. In Hungary, however, it was also a period of tremendous struggle. The country had been torn apart by the victorious armies of the Ottoman Empire, and from the mid-sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, the heartland of the country was occupied territory with the rest was divided into separate political regions, one governed by the Habsburg court from Vienna and the other by Transylvanian prices. Yet against this dramatic backdrop, Hungary's goldsmiths were able to produce objects of great beauty, a lasting tribute to the Hungarian spirit and resolve. After the liberation of Hungary at the end of the seventeenth century, they contributed to the period of reconstruction by creating masterpieces for the new churches and Baroque palaces being built.