The Fejérváry collection of ivories

Gábor Fejérváry (1780-1851) amassed a large collection of ancient and medieval objects in his house at Eperjes in northern Hungary (today Presov, Slovakia). After his death, his nephew Ferenc Pulszky inherited the collection. Pulszky at that time was living in England - he had to leave Hungary for his role in the 1848 revolution and war for independence. Pulszky managed to deliver parts of this collection to England, as he decided to sell much of it. In 1855 Liverpool goldsmith, jeweler and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries Joseph Mayer (1803—86) purchased the Fejérváry ivory collection from Pulszky. The collection contained a large number of late antique, early medieval and later ivories, as you can see in the original catalogue published just after the sale, in 1856 (full text here). You can read more about the Fejérváry-Pulszky collection, and Fejérváry's Liber Antiquitatis, which contains images of objects in his collection, on the website of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

Venatio ivory, 5th c.
Liverpool, World Museum

Joseph Mayer gave his collection to the Liverpool Museum in 1867. Ancient ivories are in the World Museum today, while Gothic ivories from the Fejérváry-Mayer collection are in the Walker Art Gallery. The catalogue of the Liverpool ivories by Margaret Gibson was published in 1994 (see this link). The National Museums Liverpool Blog provides a bit more information on these ivories. When it comes to Gothic pieces, you can learn a lot more via the Gothic Ivories Project of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Search for the name of Fejérváry to get a list of the ivories from his collection (this link should work). One of the finest pieces, a 14th-century French mirror case, is illustrated below.

The Fejérváry collection held many other treasures, including such rare pieces as the Armento Rider (British Museum) or Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (also in Liverpool), one of the finest surviving Aztec manuscripts. You can read about that manuscript on the BibliOdyssey blog. 

Upon returning to Hungary after his exile, Ferenc Pulszky became the director of the Hungarian National Museum. Items he could not sell from the Fejérváry collection, as well as a large number of other objects he collected later in his life, are in various museums of Hungary today. János György Szilágyi writes more on him in The Hungarian Quarterly.

Mirror case, French, first half of 14th century
Liverpool, Walker Art Museum 

Botticelli in Esztergom?

Temperantia
Esztergom, Studiolo of palace
Photo via artmagazin 

I did not want to write this post. A great discovery has been announced a few years ago (frescoes painted by Botticelli have been identified in Esztergom!) but I still remain skeptical. Also, as I have been unable to study these frescoes personally during the last few years, and having never worked on Botticelli, I don't really have a very strong art historical argument to put forward here or in a more scholarly publication. In the end I decided to simply list a few facts here.

1. The medieval royal - later archiepiscopal - palace of Esztergom has been ruined and buried during the Turkish wars of the 16th-17th centuries (see this earlier post). The remains of the palace have been uncovered between 1934-38 in a large-scale archaeological campaign. Two large sets of frescoes were found on the walls of the building: a mid-14th century fresco-cycle in the chapel, painted by Riminese masters (in my opinion), and fragments of an early Renaissance cycle in one of the rooms of the palace. The room has been identified as the Studiolo of the archbishops of Esztergom, and the four surviving figures of the Renaissance fresco cycle as allegories of four virtues.

2. Starting in 2000, a new restoration campaign, led by Zsuzsanna Wierdl was started on the frescoes of Esztergom. Many later retouches, discolored repairs have to be removed, while structural problems of the entire building although had to be solved. This work is still not finished, in fact it largely stopped about two years ago, due to lack of funding. It is to be hoped that it will be continued this year, as the frescoes remain largely inaccessible (link to Hungarian article about funding).

The four Virtues at Esztergom, before restoration 

3. At a conference (pdf) held at Villa i Tatti, Florence in 2007, restorer Zsuzsanna Wierdl and art historian Mária Prokopp presented their findings, announcing that the figure of Temperance at Esztergom was painted by Sandro Botticelli in the 1460s, commissioned by archbishop Johannes Vitéz. The Hungarian cultural minister, who happened to be in Rome at that time, announced that Botticelli frescoes have been found in Hungary, and the international and Hungarian press was enthusiastic (link to Reuters article, to serve as an example). Participants at the conference were less enthusiastic, and lively debate continued as the conference embarked on an excursion to Hungary. Pro and contra arguments were published in the Hungarian press - particularly lively was the rebuttal of the theory by Louis A. Waldman, assistant director of Villa I Tatti, and a noted expert of the period. Waldman's argument was published in an interview in a Hungarian weekly, Élet és irodalom. Other experts, most notably Miklós Boskovits expressed their doubts (summary in this Hungarian article). The acts of the Florentine conference - co-edited by Dr. Waldman - are to be published in the near future.

Fortitudo in Esztergom and a detail from Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Uffizi)
Comparison by Zsuzsanna Wierdl, Studiolo

Fortified Saxon churches of Transylania

Birthälm (Berethalom/Biertan) 

The southern part of Transylvania has been populated by settlers from various (mainly the westernmost) parts of Germany, generally termed Saxons in medieval and more recent sources (you can read their history here). These Saxon settlers built some of the most urban settlements of Transylvania - cities such as Kronstadt (Brassó/Brasov), Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben/Sibiu) or Schässburg (Segesvár/Sighisoara). The villages of that region largely preserved their medieval structure to this day, and most are dominated by large medieval churches. Over the course of the 15-17th centuries,  as the territory was under constant threat by the Ottoman Empire, these churches were all fortified - some built into veritable castles. Transylvanian Saxons became Lutheran during the 16th century, thus these churches preserved much of their medieval treasures - including altarpieces, goldsmith works, liturgical textiles, Turkish rugs - to this day. These days, more and more frescoes are also coming to light from under the whitewash in these churches. Owing to the mass exodus of Transylvanian Saxons to Germany during the 1980s-1990s, many of these churches are out of use today, some completely abandoned. However, more and more is done to preserve this rich heritage. The churches of the region of Hermannstadt have been put on the watch-list of the World Monument Fund, while seven churches and the historic center of Schässburg are on the Unesco World Heritage list. International conservation efforts have been quite successful in some cases, as with the Church on the Hill in Schässburg, and Prince Charles has taken an interest in the region, buying property there.

Malmkrog (Almakerék/Malancrav) 

In this post, I would like to call attention to a website aimed at documenting the Saxon churches of Transylvania. The website Fortified Churches provides information on the region in five languages, with photo galleries of many of the churches (browse them under Locations). It is well worth a visit - although the best of course is visit the region in person, something I can highly recommend.

(Pictures in this post are from the Fortified Churches website. See also my earlier post on Abandoned medieval churches in Transylvania).

New medieval art websites, IV.

This is turning into a regular feature of my blog - once again I collected some wonderful new websites on medieval art. I learned about most of them on Twitter (you can find a number of excellent Tweeters just by clicking on my list of Medieval Art - or if you don't like Twitter, check out the Medieval Art Weekly, an automatic paper created from tweets on this list). Other websites I found on the Facebook page dedicated to Medieval Art. So, here are the recommendations for March, most related to medieval manuscripts:

Oxford, Bodleian Library. 

Ms Douce, 134. fol 98 

Medieval Imaginations: Literature and visual culture in the Middle Ages is a database coordinated by Faculty of English of Cambridge University. It has been online for some time, and it is an ongoing project. I am quoting from the main page: "Medieval Imaginations provides a database of images to enable you to explore the interface between the literature and visual culture of medieval England. It has been compiled to provide images corresponding to the main episodes dramatized in the English Mystery Plays, because these present the medieval view of human history from the Creation to the Last Judgement. The images are mostly of English origin and from the later Middle Ages, with an emphasis on material from East Anglia, one of medieval England's most dynamic regions."

Getty, Ms. Ludwig XV 3.

Fol. 89v

Stories to watch: Narratives in Medieval Manuscripts is a website of a new exhibition at the Getty Center, Los Angeles (February 22 - May 15, 2011). The exhibition focuses on narrative images and storytelling in medieval manuscripts. The website also has a nice interactive feature, where the gospel narrative from a prayer book can be studied.

München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,

Cgm 1952  

Treasures of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 3D. More and more medieval manuscripts can be studied in digital format. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is now offering something more: 3D digital versions of some medieval manuscripts. You can virtually turn the pages, and even turn the book upside down or spin it. Its the kind of thing one often sees in new exhibitions, on touchscreen computers - where the real thing is in a showcase nearby. Browsing books like this at home, however, is really not all that useful - although fun, at first. The application is slow, pages often tend to turn the wrong way, zooming is quite limited, etc. I'll take an old-fashioned digital facsimile any day instead of this - luckily, the BSB has plenty of those!

It is more fun to look at virtual buildings in 3D - and that is precisely what you can do at the Catedral - Libro de Piedra website. It is a web application providing a virtual tour of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and its museum, through new technologies. If you are interested in more details, this website describes the making of this web application.

The last site to be mentioned today is not only about medieval art - it is a general listing of art history websites, especially blogs. As stated in the overview, "the Art & History Database (AHDB) is an ongoing collation of information on art and history resources on the web". The database offers search capabilities, as well as a list of websites. You can read more about AHDB on the Three Pipe Problem blog of its creator, H Niyazi.

Hungarian azurite

When the previously unknown fresco of the Virgin and Child was uncovered in the Inner City parish church of (Buda)Pest, the restorer and art historians alike were struck by the excellent preservation of large patches of azurite blue. The cloak of the Virgin and that of the Child is the same blue, and the background of the painting is painted with a darker shade of the same blue (azurite mixed with black). This find reminds us that during the Middle Ages, Hungary was one of the primary sources of azurite in Europe. The mineral (a copper-ore) came from the copper mines of northern Hungary, from places such as Rudabánya. It is well-known that ultramarine was the most expensive pigment in the Middle Ages - but it was very hard to get, and azurite was a good alternative. You can read about the pigment a lot, for example in Daniel V. Thompson's classic book on the Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting.

Paint samples have been analysed from the Budapest fresco, and beautiful microscopic photos of the pigment were made by restorer Éva Galambos - such as this one to the right.

The Virgin Mary from
the Ghent Altarpiece 

Hungarian azurite sources became generally unavailable to Europe after the Ottoman Turks occupied much of the country during the 16th century. There is a classic story, reported among others by Karel van Mander, that reminds us of these historical circumstances. Around 1558, Michiel Coxie was making a copy of the Ghent altarpiece of Jan and Hubert van Eyck (the panels of which are today in Berlin and Munich), for Philip II of Spain (also the Duke of Flanders). As Karel van Mander tells us, Coxie fulfilled this commission admirably. Coxie, however, was unable to obtain azurite of suitable quality - Coxie explains that this type of azure pigment, a natural coloring, comes from some mountains of Hungary, and was easier to obtain earlier, before the country came under Ottoman rule. Coxie in the end was able to get the needed azurite on the order of the king directly from Titian, who still had some. Van Mander goes on to emphasize that only the azurite needed for the cloak of the Virgin was worth 32 ducats. Did Jan van Eyck use Hungarian azurite, too? The sources do not reveal this - but maybe the new technical examination of the Ghent altarpiece will provide some answers.

You can read van Mander's original text in the Het Schilder-boek, in the online edition of the Dutch Digital Library. The story is told in the Life of Jan and Hubert van Eyck.

(See also my previous posts on the history of the Inner City parish church, and on various wall-paintings inside that church.)

Konzilstadt Konstanz

Last week I traveled to Konstanz (Constance), Germany, to participate in a meeting to prepare a major exhibition dedicated to the Council of Constance. This event, which took place between 1414 and 1418 was the most important ever to take place in that town, and it was also the high point of the career of King Sigismund. He had been king of Hungary since 1387, but after his 1410 election as King of the Romans he became a major player on the European political scene. You can follow the route he took to get to the Council, and also through Western Europe to negotiate at the website of the 2006 Sigismundus-exhibition.

In order to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Council, five years of events are planned for 2014-2018, each dedicated to a specific theme. A special event has been set up to coordinate these events, and you can find a lot of information on their website. The local paper also wrote about the preparation of the exhibition, as you can read here.

While there, I had a chance to see the newly restored frescoes of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (former Augustinian church). Sigismund and his court stayed in this monastery during the Council, and he commissioned these frescoes in 1417. Of course he had his patron saint, St. Sigismund, depicted - resulting in a famed portrait of the king himself (see above). The German Wikipedia entry on the church is quite useful, and you can also see some of my photos of the frescoes below.

Medieval stone carvings stolen from the Hungarian National Gallery

As it was revealead on Tuesday, two highly important Romanesque stone carvings had been stolen from the Hungarian National Gallery some time in early February. Both carvings were on view in the medieval lapidary of the Gallery, located on the ground floor of the building. There is no explanation as to how or when the theft took place.

The missing stones are the following:

A cornice fragment stemming from the church of Ják, dating from around 1230. The carving, decorated with the figure of a dragon (which originally joined another dragon), comes from the west portal of the abbey church of Ják, and was most recently published in the catalogue of the collection, written by Sándor Tóth (see my earlier post on this).

Hungarian National Gallery, Inv. no. 55.1037, sandstone, 24 x 26 x 15,5 cm

Left side fragment of a relief slab from the abbey church of Somogyvár, dating from around 1150. The stone carving belongs to the Rippl Rónai Museum of Kaposvár, it was on long-term loan in the National Gallery. The carving was published in the Pannonia Regia exhibition catalogue of the National Gallery in 1994.

Kaposvár, Rippl Rónai Museum, Inv. no. MCXC, white marble, 32 x 21 x 9 cm




 





It seems clear that objects such as these cannot be sold on the open market. It is hoped that the carvings will be recovered soon. The images here are from the official Hungarian database of stolen artwork, maintaned by the National Office of Cultural Heritage.