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In this article I make an attempt to determine the function of a so-far unpublished small painting unknown also for professionals. The painting is from the former collection of Rudolf Bedő (1891-1978); the present-day trustees of the remnant of the collection register it as “French master, around 1700: Mythological scene” (fig. 1). The small composition on painter’s cardboard shows a Triton riding on dolphins and blowing a conch horn, and a putto. The characters have been popular in art works and literature since Antiquity; in mythological scenes they belong to the escort of sea nymphs or mermaids. A first sight at the picture painted as trompe-l’oeil, in grisaille, already suggested that it was related to French art, but as for the school and time of creation more caution was called for by several details. On the one hand, there is a painted label possibly with Hungarian inscription in the bottom right-hand corner, and on the other hand, the execution of the surface gives a more modern impression than works of the 18^th century.

I managed to find the original composition, a monumental relief by Claude-Michel or Clodion (1738-1814). The relief was designed for the garden façade of the mansion built by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart in 1775-79 for the general treasurer of the Artillery and Military Engineering Jacques-Louis Bouret de Vézelay. Its theme is Galathea’s triumph. Apart from the original stone relief, variants are known in terracotta, plaster, bronze and Sèvres biscuit (unpainted porcelain) – their great number is proof of the composition’s popularity. Besides, several trompe-l’oeil paintings can also be found, including the one from the Bedő collection.

The typical core of the composition showing Galatea with a Triton riding on the back of dolphins and blowing his conch horn with putti and Nereids became the topic of separate compositions. Most of the terracotta, plaster, bronze and porcelain variants, imitations and repetitions after this scene are from the 19-20^th centuries thanks to the late 19^th century re-discovery of Clodion and the ensuing craze labelled “clodiomania”. However, from Guilhem Scherf’s investigations we know that several contemporaneous, 18^th century carved-cast variants are also identified which circulated on the early 19^th century art market in Paris.

There is also a further reduced version of the Galatea composition, which only shows the Triton on dolphins and blowing his horn; one specimen can be found in the V & A Museum sculpture collection in London (fig. 2). About the painted imitations of Clodion’s reliefs Marianne Roland Michel’s thorough investigations provide a summary. Depicting reliefs in painting can be traced to early 18^th century Dutch-Flemish painting (Willem van Mieris, Mathys Neiveu), and the theme was present in French painting from the 1730s, among others, in works by Chardin and Alexandre-Francois Desportes. The efflorescence of the genre of trompe-l’oeil after sculptures and reliefs was in the last third of the 18^th century, between 1775 and 1790. The trend was inspired by Clodion’s works in great measure, as is proven by the high number of trompe-l’oeils by that-time still-life painters – Anne Vallayer-Coster, Piat-Joseph Sauvage, Jean-Jacques Bachelier, Louis-Léopold and Jules Boilly – inspired by the famous sculptor’s reliefs.

Clodion’s Galatea relief has some reduced versions in painting as well. Of highest quality is the trompe-l’oeil by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845) about the central part of the terracotta version. His son Julien-Léopold (Jules) Boilly (1796-1874) followed in his father’s footsteps painting trompe-l’oeil still-lifes, and he also made a version after Clodion’s Galatea (fig. 3). These examples suggest that the diverse painted versions already began to spread in Clodion’s lifetime, in the late 18^th century.

The Budapest Triton riding on dolphins and blowing a conch horn and the putto clutching his finger represent the left side of the relief as depicted by Boilly, wi^th some modification. In both Clodion’s original and Boilly’s copy there is a putto with a torch in his hand hovering above the Triton, which is missing from the painting from the Bedő collection. The greyish material of the painted relief looks more like stone (or plaster) than reddish-brown terracotta as in Boilly’s painting. The imitated stone carving appears nailed to a grained board. To enhance the illusion, the painter made a few tiny changes: where the hook is fastened to it, the stone relief is chipped on the rim, and above the dolphin in the middle there is a diagonal deep scratch or crack.

There is a terracotta version that cropped up in French art trade lately and that reduces the original Galatea composition to even fewer figures; this version may provide explanation for the compositional changes. Another known variant of the composition which is apparently the model of the Budapest painting is kept in the Rhode Island School of Design’s art collection in Providence (fig. 4). It is therefore presumable that a different, more reduced variation of the original Clodion composition spread during the clodiomania period, and the painting at issue was made from a presumed plaster copy of it in (Buda)Pest.

Another confusing element in the trompe-l’oeil from the Bedő collection is the blue-framed painted label in the right-hand bottom corner which reads “Triton 195 Sz.” (?) (fig. 5). The detail imitating an auction or collection label emphasizes the trompe-l’oeil character and may have a role in determining the master and date of painting. On the basis of restorer’s observation, phototechnical tests (fig. 6) and the physical properties of the medium (prepared painter’s cardboard was in use from the mid-19^th century) the 18^th century origin of the painting can be excluded. The paint material is homogeneous, the luminescent image alludes to its application at one time, without subsequent corrections. The label inscribed “Triton” is synchronous with the work.

It was examined what might have been the purpose of the relief imitation. Maybe it was an assignment to copy at the Academy, this method being a fundamental part of the formation. Just like at the art academies of Vienna and Munich, in the First Hungarian Painting Academy founded by Venice-born Jacopo Marastoni in 1846, then in the Bertalan Székely-led “curriculum” of the Hungarian Royal Drawing School and Art Teacher's College, the state institution in its wake, the copying of prints and plaster copies was ascribed great importance. The teaching method the School of Design can be inferred from the curricula: the learning of figural painting began in the first class by copying planar patterns and convex plaster models in drawing, in the second class copying plaster models in painting was the task. The training based on copying was completed by representation from live models. The register of the one-time cast collection of the school has not been found, that is why only a fragmentary idea can be had of its previous richness on the basis of surviving casts, visual aids, interior photos and replicas of art objects. Painted copies from plaster casts were also made in Marastoni’s private academy in Pest in the mid-19^th century. An excellent example is the grisaille copy of a relief by the 17^th century Flemish-French sculptor Francois du Quesnoy (1597-1643) painted by József Marastoni, the son of the Academy’s professor (fig. 7).

Though plaster casts had been among the customary paraphernalia of artists’ ateliers for centuries, the painted label included in the studied trompe-l’oeil alludes rather to a numbered piece in a public collection, so it was much rather a part of a collection for educational purposes than a piece in the private collection of an artist used as a model. By way of an analogy it can be mentioned that the method of identification among the plaster casts in Schola Graphidis of the high school of the Hungarian University of Art is a blue-framed label stuck to a plaster piece indicating the maker, theme, and inventory number (fig. 9). The anatomical casts of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts are similarly identified.

The Hungarian institutions of education ordered the casts from catalogues of casting workshops in Vienna and Stuttgart. The selected models arrived in the schools via diverse book and stationary traders, right until the opening of similar casting foundry in Budapest in the last decade of the 19^th century. Casting workshops were first opened in the Hungarian capital in the 1880s on West European examples and on their repertoire. They were predominantly established next to schools for the building trade in support of training activity. An idea can be had of their supply on the basis of the surviving price lists of the casting shop next to the State Paedagogium founded in 1886 and the shop next to the Higher Architectural School (Higher School of Design). In the price list of both workshops there is a piece designated as “Triton, modern French relief, 35×18 cm”. Though no illustration is give unfortunately, the size of the painted plaster model in the studied painting (19×37.5 cm) is conspicuously close to the one in the catalogue. I think that the undiminished popularity of Clodion at the turn of the century and the similarity of the size support the assumption that the price list includes the plaster cast we have been searching for.

Though the examples strongly suggest that the trompe-l’oeil from the Bedő collection was a school assignment, possibly in Budapest, but this assumption too needs further verification, and the painter of the piece is still a topic of research. In view of the above-said, I nonetheless recommend that the designation of the painting be: “Hungarian painter, after Clodion’s (Nancy 1738 – Paris 1814) relief, late 19^th – early 20^th century: Triton with dolphins and putto.”

This paper aims towards a contextual analysis of the emblematic decoration of the staircase of the former jesuit (today Benedictine) college in Győr, North-Western hun-gary. The decoration, created in 1697, visualizes the prayer Salve Regina, and its content is closely connected to the jesuit spiritual exercise of meditation. According to my interpretation, the emblems of the staircase offered a visual aid to the jesuit clerks, for their meditations on the significance of holy Mary. The emblems, thus, embody the idea of “Ut pictura meditatio”, as defined by Walter S. Melion.

I offer an analysis of the meditational programme of the decoration of the Győr staircase, and a brief outline of its place in late 17th-century devotional emblematics. The source of the emblematic decoration could be found in the context of jesuit emblem literature and applied emblematics. Besides several analogous emblematic publications, according to my research, the visual source for the Győr programme was the Salve regina print-series by the Antwerp artist Anton Wierix. Through an analysis of this source, I aim to distance the interpretation of the staircase’s decoration from the former attempt of Éva Knapp, proposing that the decoration was based on creative visual translations of emblem-descriptions by jacob Masen.

Through my interpretation of the emblems and their overall programme, the decoration of the Győr college could be placed in the context of jesuit meditation and applied emblematics. I also aim to elaborate on the practical function of the decorative programme, and thus widening our knowledge on early modern practices of emblematic meditation in monastic communities.

Két esettanulmány a praerómai Itália összehasonlító mitológiai ikonográfiája köréből. Az első további bizonyítékát adja Etruria és Picenum ismert kapcsolatának az orientalizáló korban. A második azt bizonyítja, hogy ugyanaz az ikonográfiai motívum különböző értelmezést kíván különböző kultúrák (ebben az esetben Picenum és Basilicata) összefüggésében.

Abstract

The sculpture, which the extant invoice claims to have originated from the Sant' Agostino church of Cremona, was bought by the museum from Achille Glisenti, a painter and art dealer, in 1895 (figs 1–2). The frontal pose and the compactness of the white marble sculpture of exquisite quality in composition and execution (h.: 52 cm, w.: 21 cm, d.: 16 cm), as well as the finish of the sides and the back clearly reveal that it was designed for some niche. The representation of the enthroned Christ Pantocrator was prevalent in Venetian sepulchral sculpture in Italy in the 14th century, mainly in the 1340s–60s. The Budapest sculpture is most closely analogous with specimens of this strain by virtue of the iconography and style. Just like the analogies, it was probably set in the middle of the longitudinal side of the sarcophagus recessed in the shape of an ornate throne. Although no Christ figure carved separately of the side of a sarcophagus is known, there are at least two specimens of the enthroned Madonna figures far more frequently featuring in Venetian sarcophagi in the same place (figs 3–4). These two Virgin figures were carved for an exceptionally representative type of sepulchral monuments “with acroteria”, which is attributable to one of the most notable local master of the period, Andriolo de Santi.

The closest analogy to the Budapest sculpture can also be found in this circle. Christ Pantocrator adorning the main portal of the San Lorenzo church in Vicenza made by Andriolo's workshop in 1342–44 is almost like a copy of the Budapest work (figs 5–6). It is however hard to decide whether it was made by the same hand or it is a copy. There is yet another carving – that of the enthroned Madonna in the tympan of the portal – that resembles even more closely the Budapest statue in terms of quality, overall form and certain details (fig. 8). Though there are hardly any clues as to the authorship of individual parts of the portal, it is not far-fetched to presume – in agreement with many researchers – that the tympan figures were in all likelihood carved by Andriolo. In this way it is possible to attribute the Budapest sculpture to him, too, and it may as well be presumed that it was made for an above-mentioned representative sarcophagus. Furthermore, the quality even permits the assumption that it might be the prototype for the Venetian Pantocrator series of the 1340s–60s.

All this confirms that the Christ statue and the respective tomb must have been made for a distinguished person. There is however no data in connection with the Sant' Agostino church of Cremona or the related sources that might be linked to this sepulchral monument in any way, therefore the identification of the person is not possible. The client must have been a Cremonese with close contacts to Venice, which may be why he imported the sepulchre to the Lombardian city. The phenomenon fits in well with the overall situation of sculpture in Cremona in the 14th century: there was probably no noteworthy stonecarving workshop in the city, at least all the surviving works are by masters active elsewhere.

Abstract

A small panel (Hungarian private collection) depicting the scene of giving comission for a portrait was sold off at the Ernst Museum's 34th auction in 1927 as a work by Gonzales Coques. When in 1995 the painting cropped up again, I proposed an attribution to “the circle of Gerard ter Borch” and a dating to around 1650, but the distinctly portrait-like representation of the characters held the promise of a more exact identification. During the investigation I soon arrived at a studio interior in which – according to the traditionally identification – “Daniel Seghers is sitting for his portrait in the atelier of Gonzales Coques”. Auctioned under the name of Coques several times, the authorship of the work has been widely contested by experts – with good reason – and most recently it is only labelled “by a Flemish painter”. As for the sitter, it is quite probable that he is the Jesuit monk Daniel Seghers who painted flower still-lives. Though in his authentic portrait, the one showing him in profile also used by Cornelis de Bie, he is as an older man with a small moustache and beard, his demeanor, his bony face structure and earnest glance are very similar.

I went on looking for the painter of these two scenes among the Flemish followers of Coques on the basis of style criticism and found analogies in the figures of Charles Emmanuel Bizet. However, biographical data made me discard this hypothesis.

Proceeding along the identification of facial features I concluded that the portratist in the two pictures does not resemble any of the known portraits of Coques, but one can recognize Lucas Franchoys the younger on the basis of the engraved portrait also published by Cornelis de Bie. Another figure of the scene can be identified on this basis: Peeter Franchoys sitting by the table, looking at Seghers and pointing at the companion writing next to him. To conclude, the two pictures were painted by Lucas Franchoys II, and the known biographical data allow for a dating between 1645 and 1649.

Further, I have also identified Lucas Franchoys II's features in another two paintings known in the art trade. A small panel shows a man clipping tobacco, probably representing the sense of smell from a series of The Five Senses painted by Lucas Franchoys, hiding a self-portrait in it. The other is a high-quality work by Peeter Franchoys showing his younger brother a few years later when both of them were living in Mechelen.

Abstract

The author explicates four new attributions with hypothetical dates and provenances whenever possible. Padovanino's Lot and His Daughters (private ownership, whereabouts unknown at present) was item 85 at Nagyházi Gallery's 167th auction on 7 December 2010. The picture of a glaring colour scheme belongs to the late phase of the painter's oeuvre painted around the 1640s and may be identical with a painting of the same theme listed in Giovanni Maria Visconti's inventory of estate in 1674. Antonio Carneo's Annunciation was purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts in 1976 as a work by an unidentified North Italian master. The picture showing both cinquecento (Tintoretto) and seicento (Fetti, Strozzi) influences was presumably painted in Udine around 1680. The restoration begun in 1981 was interrupted. The two pigeons in the originally added lower extension are hard to explain and disrupt the composition. Andrea Celesti's Madonna (Hungarian private collection) cropped up at the 7th auction of the Kieselbach Gallery on 19 March 1999 as a work by an anonymous 18th century painter. The light brushwork and the iridescent colour effects suggest that it was created not earlier than around 1700. The Museum of Fine Arts has four paintings by Gregorio Lazzarini and the Christian Museum has one, but the picture (now in private collection) auctioned off at the 150th auction of the Nagyházi Gallery on 9 December 2008 is the only representative altarpiece. With reference to a description of a picture in A. M. Zanetti's “Della pittura veneziana” (1771) Julianna Ágoston presumes that the picture was originally in the Sant' Angelo church in Venice (now demolished).

The study was originally written for the volume introducing the Medieval Buda (Medieval Buda in Context. Ed. Szende, Katalin-Nagy, Balázs. Leiden [Brill] 2014, to be published). It was written with the aim of giving an image of the present situation of the researches of the Buda Sigismund sculpture findings to the readers abroad. However, beyond this, it also attempts to formulate certain questions and suggestions that could give directions for further investigations in the future.

In 1974 an important finding of sculptures was explored in the field of the medieval Buda Castle. The fragmentary ensemble became by its existing suddenly such a phenomenon, concerning the period of court art of Sigismund of Luxembourg’s reign in Hungary (1387–1437) that one could not even know about before. Intensive researches began after the sculptures had been found, acknowledging not only their Hungarian but Europeanlevel importance, too. These researches had calmed down approximately after one decade, giving answers to some questions, nevertheless leaving even more dilemmas after. It is uncertain where were the sculptures intended to put, in other words exactly where were they erected; we do not know which part of them and how many parts were unfinished; we do not know their grouping, and we can formulate about their themes of topics only conjectures; their dating is strongly vacillating; the date of their devastation and circumstances is not entirely clear; concerning their style connections the opinions are strongly divided. Beyond these problems, because of the important uncertainties concerning the European sculpture, the Buda Castle sculpture ensemble, enriched since 1974 with further findings, could not up to this time incorporate into Europe’s, not even into the Central European artistic overall view.

As it became clear for nowadays, the sculpture-ensemble was found among the ruins of a sculpture workshop at stem neighbourhood of the Royal Palace. The main part of the pieces was never raised, erected, nevertheless they were devoted to the buildings of the Royal Palace and to the Saint Sigismund’s Collegiate Church founded by Sigismund. Although their dating upon stylistic basis for the moment is unsolvable, on the basis of the historical data of the reign of Sigismund, furthermore upon the period of the building of the parts of the collegiate church and the royal castle the workshop’s functioning can be put rather definitely to the second and third decade of the 15th century. On the one hand a part of the sculpture ensemble consists of a serial of smaller pieces of apostles (perhaps prophets) while on the other hand we can see large sized court figures that flocked around the emperor somehow presenting them genealogically, dynastically. Nevertheless, certainly there were further figures depicting saints, representing participants of Biblical scenes. Therefore we have to speak about several programs dealing with the decoration of several properties with the sculptures, sculpture-groups.

The style of the sculpture-ensemble is not homogeneous either, within this group different, partly strong, marked directions are interconnected. The source of the apostle prophet-figures was undoubtedly the Franco- Flemish art around 1400 within which mostly the determinative branch could have been the multi-coloured sculpture of the French royal and ducal courts. As regards the other rest sculptures, according to the researches, they are bound predominantly to the ensemble of the so called Grosslobming group located in Styria and through this way it was interpreted within the frame of Central European art. However, this direction is strongly questionable therefore by all means it would be worth to examine more thoroughly the French origin style having already arisen in connection with them. In the secular theme sculpture of the French royal and ducal courts besides the iconography there are closer relations concerning the types, motives and style than what we can find in either the Austrian or the Central European sculptural materials.

The background that could have served the possible French origin of the majority of the Buda Castle ensemble was the longer 1416 Paris staying of Sigismund. According to the written sources the king received numerous French masters at his service and sent them to Buda. Behind this decision there were probably representational power factors in connection with which it is worth to quote the multiple, emphatic manifestations of the imperial supremacy in Paris against the French king.

Since the question of the origin of the Buda sculptures is mostly unclear, momentarily even in their outline it is not known their onetime possible influence. Because of the time frame of the workshop’s functioning the sculpture-ensemble cannot play the role of the international style’s Central European disseminates – as it emerged previously. However, their role is conceivable just because of their disengaging with that style. For the moment it is unclear but in any case – concerning both the ordering person and the style – the line should be followed in the sense that the Buda figures have to do at several points with the art of Hans Multscher. The mere idea of these possible relations represents well that the sculptures made for Sigismund form one of the most important ensembles of this era’s Central European and possibly even the European art.

The art collection of István Marczibányi (1752–1810), remembered as the benefactor of the Hungarian nation, who devoted a great part of his fortune to religious, educational, scientific and social goals, is generally known as a collection of ‘national Antiquities’ of Hungary. This opinion was already widespread in Hungarian publicity at the beginning of the 19th century, when Marczibányi pledged that he would enrich the collection of the prospective Hungarian national Museum with his artworks. But the description of his collection in Pál Wallaszky’s book Conspectus reipublicae litterariae in Hungaria published in 1808 testifies to the diversity and international character of the collection. In the Marczibányi “treasury”, divided into fourteen units, in addition to a rich cabinet for coins and medals there were mosaics, sculptures, drinking vessels, filigree-adorned goldsmiths’ works, weapons, Chinese art objects, gemstones and objects carved from them (buttons, cameos, caskets and vases), diverse marble monuments and copper engravings. Picking, for example, the set of sculptures, we find ancient Egyptian, Greek and Ro man pieces as well as mediaeval and modern masterpieces arranged by materials.

After the collector’s death, his younger brother Imre Marczibányi (1755–1826) and his nephews Márton (1784–1834), János (1786–1830), and Antal (1793–1872) jointly inherited the collection housed in a palace in dísz tér (Parade Square) in Buda. In 1811, acting on the promise of the deceased, the family donated a selection of artworks to the national Museum: 276 cut gems, 9 Roman and Byzantine imperial gold coins, 35 silver coins and more than fifty antiquities and rarities including 17th and 18th-century goldsmiths’ works, Chinese soap-stone statuettes, ivory carvings, weapons and a South Italian red-figure vase, too. However, this donation did not remain intact as one entity. With the emergence of various specialized museums in the last third of the 19th century, a lot of artworks had been transferred to the new institutions, where the original provenance fell mostly into oblivion.

In the research more than a third of the artworks now in the Hungarian national Museum, the Museum of Applied Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest could be identified, relying on the first printed catalogue of the Hungarian national Museum (1825) titled Cimeliotheca Musei Nationalis Hungarici, and the handwritten acquisition registers. The entries have revealed that fictitious provenances were attached to several items, since the alleged or real association with prominent historical figures played an important role in the acquisition strategies of private collectors and museums alike at the time. For example, an ivory carving interpreted in the Cimeliotheca as the reliquary of St Margaret of Hungary could be identified with an object in the Metalwork Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (inv. no. 18843), whose stylistic analogies and parallels invalidate the legendary origin: the bone plates subsequently assembled as a front of a casket were presumably made in a Venetian workshop at the end of the 14th century.

There are merely sporadic data about the network of István Marczibányi’s connections as a collector, and about the history of his former collection remaining in the possession of his heirs. It is known that collector Miklós Jankovich (1772–1846) purchased painted and carved marble portraits around 1816 from the Marczi bányi collection, together with goldsmiths’ works including a coconut cup newly identified in the Metalwork Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (inv. no. 19041). The group of exquisite Italian Cinquecento bronze statuettes published by art historian Géza Entz (1913–1993), was last owned as a whole by Antal Marczibányi (nephew of István) who died in 1872. These collection of small bronzes could have also been collected by István Marczibányi, then it got scattered through inheritance, and certain pieces of it landed in north American and European museums as of the second third of the 20th century. Although according to Entz’s hypothesis the small bronzes were purchased by István’s brother Imre through the mediation of sculptor and art collector István Ferenczy (1792–1956) studying in Rome, there is no written data to verify it. By contrast, it is known that the posthumous estate of István Marczibányi included a large but not detailed collection of classical Roman statues in 1811, which the heirs did not donate to the national Museum. It may be presumed that some of the renaissance small bronzes of mythological themes following classical prototypes were believed to be classical antiquities at the beginning of the 19th century. Further research will hopefully reveal more information about the circumstances of their acquisition.

Antonio Bonfini Symposion című dialógusa egyetlen kéziratban maradt ránk (OSZK Clmae 421). Ezt a kéziratot a szerző maga készítette és adta át Beatrix királynénak, Mátyás feleségének. Ugyanakkor ebben a példányban a Symposion több tucatnyi görög nyelvű idézete zavarba ejtő hibákkal jelenik meg. A cikk ebből a megfigyelésből kiindulva igyekszik feltárni egyrészt azt, hogy milyen okok eredményezhették a hibákat, másrészt azt is, hogy Bonfini ezeket az idézeteket milyen forrásokból vehette át. A források két csoportja érdemel kiemelt figyelmet: a Pindaros-idézetek, valamint a szerelemmel kapcsolatos idézetek sora. Az előbbiekkel kapcsolatban felmerül, hogy közük lehet Bonfini ferrarai tanulmányaihoz, az utóbbiak esetében pedig könynyen adódik a Ficino Lakoma-kommentárjával való kapcsolat lehetősége – a cikk igyekszik mindkét kérdésben egyértelműen állást foglalni.