Hungarian Treasure on view at the Metropolitan Museum

Chalice, 1462, Inv. 2010.109.6

As reported earlier on this blog, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently purchased the best objects from the collection of the late Nicholas M. Salgo. The collection includes two late medieval chalices, likely made in Hungary, as well as a large amount of goldsmith works from the 16-18th centuries, and originating from Hungary as well as from the Principality of Transylvania. From April 6th until late October 2015, the collection is on view in the decorative arts galleries of the Metropolitan Museum (just in front of the Robert Lehman Wing).

This is the information from the website of the Museum: 

"Nicolas M. Salgo (1914–2005), a Hungarian native and former United States ambassador to Budapest, was fascinated by the art of the goldsmith in Hungarian culture and formed his own "treasury" by collecting pieces that are individual and unique. This exhibition will celebrate the gift to the Metropolitan Museum of the major part of the silver collection assembled by this focused collector over three decades.

This large collection of silver—about 120 pieces, most dating from the fifteenth to the late eighteenth century—comprises a variety of types with especially refined appearance and high levels of craftsmanship, representing Hungarian silver at its best. The earliest works in the Salgo Collection are two rare medieval chalices ornamented with colorful filigree enamel. The intriguing shapes, inventive decoration, and historical importance of the objects—products of once-prosperous local aristocratic dynasties—make this ensemble exceptional. As a result of this generous gift, the Metropolitan Museum is now the only museum outside Hungary to possess such an array of sumptuous goldsmiths' work from the region."

The collection database of the Metropolitan Museum includes more detailed information on all the objects, as well as a large selection of photographs. You can get to this material via these links: link1 and link2.

Hexagonal dish, 1696, Inv. 2010.110.42

Let me end this post with a personal note. My family on my father's side originates from the town of Brassó in Transylvania (known as Kronstadt in German, now Brasov in Romania). It is recorded that some of my ancestors were goldsmiths - as commemorated for example in a poem by my great-grandfather, Lajos Áprily (Jékely) (you can read it here in Hungarian). Well, the Salgó collection includes a very nice beaker from the early 17th century, made by Jeremias Jekel, goldsmith in Brassó, who died in 1676 - and was thus maybe a distant ancestor of my family. 

Beaker, c. 1600, Inv. 2010.110.32

Hungarian silver from Heller collection on view in MAK Frankfurt

Lidded jug, 1605. Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt / Sibiu) 

© Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt 

Since earlier this year, the gold and silver collection of István Heller has been on view at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt. István Heller has amassed an exquisite private collection of European goldsmith works, which had been shown at previous exhibitions and was published in several volumes by Hirmer Verlag. After a succesful career in medicine, Heller trained as an art historian late in his life, and at a mature age successfully submitted a thesis for a doctorate in the history of art - he is also the author of the books introducing his collection. István Heller has decided to make his collection accessible to the public through a permanent partnership with the Kunstgewerbeverein in Frankfurt am Main, thus the collection will have a place at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt in perpetuity. A total of 615 objects were placed in the Museum.

The Heller collection contains high-quality gold and silver objects, ranging in time from the mid-sixteenth century to the twentieth, largely from Central European centers of goldsmith art. All the important German centers of gold work are represented, as well as – for biographical reasons – those of Hungary and Transylvania. One of the four volumes mentioned above was dedicated to goldsmith objects from this territory in the collection. In the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, this magnificent collection will be permanently housed in a room of its own in the Historische Villa Metzler. The tasteful exhibition setting allows the visitor to trace the principles of ornamental design from the Renaissance to Art Nouveau.

Flask with lid, 1670. Neusohl 

(Besztercebány / Banská Bystrica)

© Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt

This text and the images are based on the press release issued by the MAK Frankfurt (and also available in German). You can find an image gallery at hr-online.de.

If you are interested in such collection of gold and silver, you may want to read my earlier posts about the recent sale of Hungarian and Transylvanian goldsmith objects from the Herzog collection, or about the goldsmith objects which entered the Metropolitan Museum last year from the Salgó collection (see also part II and part III).

Hungarian silver on sale in NYC

Nautilus cup
Nagyszeben, mid-17th century 

About 30 precious silver and goldsmith works from Hungary and Transylvania will be auctioned off at Christie's New York tomorrow (17 May 2011). (Sale 2447: Important English, Continental and American Silver and Gold). The pieces in question are all Renaissance and Baroque works, mainly dating from the 17th century. Before WWII, the objects all belonged to the Herzog collection. The collection of Baron Mór Lipót Herzog, a wealthy Jewish magnate in Budapest was one of the largest of its time in Hungary, which got largely dispersed during the war. The silver objects in the collection were last fully documented in a 1930 inventory, and most of the pieces were on view for the last time at various exhibitions at Budapest's Museum of Applied Arts at around that time. The pieces have been recorded as wartime victims of looting, and their whereabouts were unknown until this sale.

The New York Times also wrote on the sale, and has this to say about the provenance of the objects, based on a telephone interview with the anonymous seller: "a Herzog family member had managed to bring the pieces to New York at some point. The family had long kept them in storage."

You can browse the objects on the website of Christie's, where a full e-catalogue and a slideshow of objects is also avaliable. When browsing the auction catalogue, the lots in question go from Lot 99 to 127 + lot 132.

17th century pendant with St. George  

Many objects from the Herzog collection are of course embroiled in restitution cases. Record-setting pieces, like the recently restituted portrait of Sigismund Baldinger by Georg Pencz have come to the market from the collection (Christie's sale 7862 of last year). Currently there is a major lawsuit going on, as heirs of the Herzog family sued the Hungarian state for objects kept in various Hungarian public collections. The emergence of these Hungarian silver objects among these circumstance is definitely most interesting.

Nevertheless, after the best pieces of the Salgó collection entered the Metropolitan Museum, it would be nice to see these pieces stay together as well, and - preferably - enter a public collection.

Detail views of Salgó chalices at the Metropolitan

The Metropolitan Museum has just made available a number of detail photographs of the two medieval chalices which had recently entered the museum from the Salgó collection. Both chalices date from the mid-15th century, and are decorated with a special technique very popular in late medieval Hungary: the so called filigree-enamel. In this special variation of the cloisonné enamel, the fields of enamel are applied inside loops and shapes of filigree wire attached to the surface of the objects. You can read about medieval enameling techniques in this article (pdf) by David Buckton of the British Museum.

The two chalices are now described on the Metropolitan website as of "Central European" origin. However, the technique and details of both chalices - which can be studies on these photographs - makes their Hungarian origin quite certain - there is plenty of comparative material available, such as this chalice. More information could be gleaned from the coat of arms on the foot of one chalice, and the inscription on the cup of the other.

These are the links to the object pages:

Chalice from 1462

Mid-15th c. chalice with coat of arms

I wrote about the Salgó collection before in two previous posts.

Hungarian goldsmith objects enter the Metropolitan Museum, part II.

I could not resist - I have to include here a few other superb objects from the Salgó collection. All these have been published before in the catalog of the collection, and now appear in the Collection database of the Metropolitan Museum, as outlined in my previous post.

First here is this beautiful 16th century Hungarian belt buckle, decorated with pearls and rubies:

Belt buckle from the Salgó collection
Metropolitan Museum, 2010.110.1

Then there is a nice late 16th century silver-gilt tankard from Transylvania, made by the goldsmith Gregorius Gunesch (Nagyszeben/Hermannstadt/Sibiu). It is not illustrated in the collection database, the picture below is from the 1996 catalog.

Silver-gilt tankard from the Salgó collection
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.110.6

Somewhat later is one of my favorite pieces from the Salgó-collection, a spice canister from 1681, commissioned by Michael Teleki, chancellor of Mihály Apafi, Prince of Transylvania. Once again the image below is from the 1996 catalog - a brief description is given by the Metropolitan Museum collection database.

Spice canister from the Salgó collection
Metropolitan Museum, 2010.110.39

There is a lot more in the collection. I will give an update here, once more images will be added to the collection database of the museum.

Hungarian goldsmith objects enter the Metropolitan Museum

Chalice with filigree enamel
Hungary, 1462
Metropolitan Museum of Art 

One of the most important collection of Hungarian goldsmith works outside Hungary was assembled by financier Nicolas M. Salgó, former US ambassador in Budapest. Salgó collected all kinds of Hungarian art; his painting collection was donated to the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers in 2006, as you can read here.

Most important, however, is his collection of Hungarian silver, which was cataloged by an expert from the Hungarian National Museum, Judit H. Kolba. The handsome English-language catalog was first published in 1996, and is still in print (Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996): see here.

The collection includes two superb medieval chalices from Hungary, both coming from the Viennese collection of Nathaniel Rothschild. One of them, dating from 1462, can bee seen on the left. Both chalices are decorated with filigree enamel, a technique which came to prominence at the Hungarian court of King Sigismund during 1420s.

In 2010, much of the collection entered the Metropolitan Museum of art, as "Gift of The Salgo Trust for Education, New York, in memory of Nicolas M. Salgo". No press release has been issued about the transfer of the objects, but most objects already appear in the collection database. 83 objects are listed in the collection of the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. If you go to the main search page of the museum, entering "Salgo" will provide you with the full list of these - although not all objects are illustrated at this stage. You can find beautiful objects here, such as this 17th century coconut cup seen on the right.