New Permanent Exhibition of the Seuso Treasure in Budapest

On July 28, 2019, the new, permanent exhibition of the Seuso Treasure opened at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest. This famed collection of 14 silver items of tableware represent the most valuable silver treasure collectıon from the late Roman Empire. The pieces of the silver tableware represent the highest level of art of their era. The treasure was discovered in the 1970s and was subsequently smuggled out of Hungary. I reported on its recovery by the Hungarian state on two previous occasions - see the first post, and this one as well. During last year, the treasure was already on view at the Hungarian National Museum, in a temporary exhibition. Now the items were moved into another part of the Museum, and an introductory part - focusing on the role of silver objects in the late Roman period - was added to the exhibition. The silver quadripus thought to belong to the set (and known since the 19th century) is also on view. The pieces can be examined in well-lit large glass showcases, and a visit to the Treasure is now part of the permanent exhibition ticket of the Museum. On this occasion, a well-illustrated new publication was also published about the Seuso Treasure. The exhibition was curated by Marianna Dági and Zsolt Mráv.

The Seuso Treasure - The Splendour of Roman Pannonia. Permanent exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum.

What's next for the Medieval Hungary blog?

Late 14th century wall-painting at Nitra cathedral

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I haven't posted here for a while. The reasons for this are manifold - among others, I don't seem to have as much time these days as some years ago. Also, I feel that the importance of this blog has decreased in the last few years. When I started this blog ten years ago, it was very hard to find up-to-date information about the art of Medieval Hungary. Thanks to numerous new publications and online resources, the situation has improved considerably in recent years. Most importantly, a new English-language survey book is now available on the subject, providing up-to-date information. Those who would like to find publications on more specific subjects, I can now advise the consultation of the annotated bibliography I put together for Oxford Bibliographies in Art History. It is a rather comprehensive bibliography on Art and Architecture in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary and can be consulted online (with a valid institutional subscription).

In addition, the digitization of museum collections (such as the Museum of Fine Arts/Hungarian National Gallery, the Hungarian National Museum or the Christian Museum in Esztergom) and library collections of medieval manuscripts (see especially the new database of the Bibliotheca Corviniana) make a lot more material much more accessible. In other words, it is much easier for English-speaking scholars to find information about the art of Medieval Hungary than it was a decade ago.

Original carved decoration of the portal of the parish church at Bártfa (Bardejov), discovered in 2019

Therefore, I feel less pressure to regularly post new information here. This does not mean that there will be no new posts here - but definitely not with the regularity characteristic of this blog until about 2017. I've looked at the blog stats now - there are about 5000 page views here per month, with the most popular posts each getting that many - hundreds of thousands of page views in total. This tells me that there is still a need for this resource.

What do you think? How did this blog help you over the years? Let me know in a comment.

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See also: Jekely, Zsombor. “Art and Architecture in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Art History. Ed. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199920105-0136

In memoriam Ferenc Dávid (1940-2019)

Ferenc Dávid, one of the most important personalities of Hungarian monument protection research, died on January 21th, 2019, at age 78.

Throughout his life, Ferenc Dávid worked as an art historian and researcher of historic buildings. He wrote his thesis on a medieval theme and started working in the field of monument protection, as a disciple of Dezső Dercsényi and Géza Entz. The 1960s and 1970s were a very important period of Hungarian monument protection when large-scale research and reconstructions were carried out throughout the country. Ferenc Dávid was responsible for a long time for the research of the historic monuments of Sopron - a town rich in medieval, Renaissance and Baroque monuments. 

This work required knowledge of every period of architectural history, as well as intensive archival research. As a result of his research, he was able to publish important studies on Sopron's gothic residential buildings (1970) the history of the medieval synagogue of Sopron (1978), as well as on houses and homeowners of downtown Sopron (in several parts).

His primary area of research, however, was on the buildings themselves, which proved to be the most reliable source of their own story. Ferenc Dávid worked out the methodology of the historical-architectural research process, which included a step-by-step investigation of the building fabric itself, comparing finds with information from archival sources. This detailed analysis - known in German terminology as the method of Bauforschung - forms the basis of both the restoration of the buildings and the art historical studies written on them. The use of this method became widespread following his example - thus he played an important role in the most creative and important period of the Hungarian Office for Monument Protection (from the 1960s to the mid-1980s).

In 1986, Ferenc Dávid became a member of the Institute of Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In this period, he mainly researched Baroque palace architecture: buildings such as Gödöllő Castle or the Esterházy-palace at Fertőd. As an expert-consultant, he participated in the restoration of countless important monuments, from the presidential palace (Sándor Palace in Buda castle) to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Although he never held a formal teaching position, young art historians learned the complex method of building research from him - often on site. I still remember our conversations, when I started as a young researcher myself in 1994. He was always helpful and generous with his time - amply demonstrated by his work carried out for my current workplace, the Museum of Applied Arts. He consulted on our collection of historic tile stoves and helped the restoration and exhibition of several monumental Baroque stoves. More recently, we greatly benefited from his advice on the history and historical decoration of the main building of the Museum of Applied Arts (which is awaiting a full reconstruction). 

His influence and the admiration of his colleagues for him is well demonstrated by the monumental, two-volume study collection published for his 73rd birthday in 2013 (Kő kövön. Dávid Ferenc 73. születésnapjára - Stein auf Stein. Festschrift für Ferenc Dávid. Budapest, 2013. Ed. Edit Szentesi, Klára Mentényi, Anna Simon).

His importance is also marked by the numerous obituaries published during the last two weeks. My Hungarian-speaking readers are advised to read especially the obituary by Pál Lővei in Élet és irodalom, 

I am saying good-bye to him with the picture below, which shows the reconstruction of a medieval wall-painting uncovered in Sopron's church of St Michael in 1866. Ferenc Storno, who had uncovered the fresco and made this reconstruction, was unsuccessful in his attempts to save the original. After learning of my casual interest in this unstudied monument last year, Ferenc Dávid immediately sent me this picture, encouraging me to work on it. Sadly, any result of my research can now only be published in his memory. R.I.P.

Ferenc Storno's reconstruction of a wall painting from the church of St. Michael, Sopron. 1868
Sopron Museum, Storno Collection