FERENC HOPP MUSEUM OF EASTERN ASIATIC ARTS

THE COLLECTING OF ORIENTAL ART IN HUNGARY
As Reflected in the Collections of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts
Permanent exhibition

György Ráth Museum
12 Városligeti fasor
Budapest H-1068

The permanent exhibition of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts commemorates those art collectors and donators who greatly enriched the Museum's collection. Thus it provides an insight into the history of collecting Oriental artworks in Hungary and displays the characteristic objects and pieces of art of the Asian countries that fall within its field of collection.

Room 1. Ferenc Hopp Memorial Room

Ferenc Hopp (1833–1919), a wealthy optician, travelled around the world five times between 1882 and 1914. At first he purchased only travel souvenirs (his first acquisition was an ostrich egg, bought in Aden during his first round-the-world tour). Later, however, his interest gradually turned towards the arts and art collecting, and especially towards Oriental and decorative arts. He had a particular fondness for lacquerware and fine carvings made from precious stones, ivory and choice woods. Among other things, he collected cloisonné enamel, finely shaped ornamented bronze artefacts and bronze artefacts for everyday use, and also ceramics.

From his rich collection, we display primarily Chinese wood carvings, ceramics and textiles, together with Japanese ivory carvings and lacquered objects. The background to the display is a photograph showing one of the rooms in Ferenc Hopp's villa. The photo appeared in the journal Magyar Iparművészet in 1913, in a paper by Zoltán Felvinczi Takács described the Hopp Collection.

Dr. Mária Ferenczy


Weituo, Defender of the Monasteries Wood, lacquered, gilded China, Qing dynasty, 17^th century		Buddhist altar ornaments: Wheel of the Law and Baldachin Porcelain with overglaze polychrome decoration China, Qing-dynasty, Qianlong reign (1736–1795)

Room 2. Imre Schwaiger Memorial Room


	Padmapani Gilt copper, Nepal, 13^th–14^th centuries

Hungarian scholars regard Imre Schwaiger (1868–1940) as the discoverer of Nepalese art. The majority of the Nepalese bronze sculptures displayed in the exhibition was presented by Schwaiger to the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest in 1914. Outstanding among the pieces donated are a female figure, probably a Hindu goddess (13th–14th century) and a Nepalese bronze representing Avalokiteshvara Padmapani (14th century). A Characteristic examples of Chinese Buddhist iconography are the -14th century image of the bodhisattva Guanyin looking at the moon reflected in water, and a stone relief from early Buddhist cave-temples dated to 583.

Béla Kelényi, Györgyi Fajcsák

Room 3. Károly Csapek Memorial Room


	Panjaranatha, a form of Mahakala Eastern Tibet, 18^th century

Károly Csapek (1904–1976) collected mainly Buddhist-related Sino-Tibetan and Chinese bronzes, as well as a few fine Japanese sculptures and house shrines. His Chinese bronzes embrace the most important iconographical types of Mahayana Buddhism between the 15th and the 19th centuries. Especially noteworthy is the outstanding quality of his Sino-Tibetan bronzes from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

After Ferenc Hopp, Emil Delmár (1876–1959) exhibited the largest number of Oriental art objects at the Amateur Art Collectors' Exhibition, organized in Budapest 1907. A part of his Oriental collection was later dispersed, while some of his pieces entered Dr. Ottó Fettich's collection.

Béla Kelényi, Györgyi Fajcsák

Room 4. Indian Art


	Bust of Buddha Szürke pala, Grey schist, Gandhara (North Pakistan), 4^th–5^th century A. D.

In the Indian room of the present exhibition, items collected by Imre Schwaiger, Ferenc Hopp, Ferenc Zajti, and Dr. Edmund de Unger are displayed.

The Indian collection owes a great deal – its very existence in fact – to Imre Schwaiger, who donated sculptural material, as well as the most valuable miniatures and many of the bronze objects to the Museum. Schwaiger's Indian collection provides a glimpse into several major periods of Indian art, such as the Kushana period of Mathura sculpture and the classical style of the Gupta period, gives an insight into the Buddhist sculpture of Gandhara which flourished on the borderland between Oriental and Western cultures, and provides a taste of the characteristic features of Pala sculpture in Eastern India as well as of Rajput sculpture in Central India. Schwaiger also donated numerous other artefacts – terracotta sculptures and textiles – to the Museum, however, lack of space prevented us from displaying all these in the exhibition.

In India, Ferenc Hopp mainly collected small bronzes, miniature paintings and works of decorative arts as testified to by the objects on display. In the exhibition, the few more recent pieces of Hindu sculpture come from Béla Ágai, while Ferenc Zajti collected only textiles. Foremost among contemporary collectors is Dr. Edmund de Unger, who presented textiles and miniatures from the Mughal era to the Museum.

Zsuzsanna Renner

Room 5. Chinese Art

The Chinese collection has been augmented mainly by donations from travellers and diplomats in China, from art dealers living in Peking and Shanghai, and from Hungarian collectors. The furniture of the 19^th century Chinese reception room come from two important collections: Dr. Dezső Bozóky (1871–1957), a ship's doctor, purchased his artefacts between 1909 and 1911, during a trip to the Far East, while the collection of journalist Béla Ágai (1870–1944) and his wife was put together in Budapest during the first half of the 20^th century.

Of the outstanding pieces in the Chinese Collection, mention should be made of the 6th century Buddhist stele, a donation from the art collector Marcell Nemes (1866–1930). Also worthy of note are the purchases – a Buddha head – made by Zoltán Felvinczi Takács, the Museum's first director; bronze and jade pieces given by art dealer Géza Szabó, traveller Count Jenő Zichy and János Xantus; and textile pieces and lacquerware presented by Dr. Ottó Fettich.

Györgyi Fajcsák

Room 6. Japanese Art


	Kanpo Araki: Peacock, 19OO Silk, colours, ink, gold

The foundations for the Museum's Japanese Collection were laid by the collecting activities of Ferenc Hopp and Count Péter Vay (1864–1948)

Almost half of Ferenc Hopp's private collection consisted of Japanese artworks. Among them lacquerware took pride of place: almost every type of object and every lacquer technique is represented. Hopp was also an enthusiastic and discerning collector of netsuke made of wood and ivory.

In 1907 Count Péter Vay made a visit to Japan. There he purchased Japanese wood-block prints and paintings, along with several good quality sculptures and works of decorative arts for the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. His purchases were funded by the state. These artworks were moved to the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts after its foundation, as were the Japanese artworks formerly kept in the Museum of Applied Arts – for example, the collection of combs bought in Japan by journalist Attila Szemere (1859–1905) and the items of contemporary Japanese art acquired at the 1900 Paris World Exhibition. Of the latter pieces, we have displayed Araki Kanpo's prize-winning picture entitled 'Peacock' and a painted and embroidered screen of four parts.

Our collection has been enriched by donations and bequests from many private collectors. Of these, special mention must be made of an album of the Tosa School, illustrating the Genji Monogatari, and netsuke items from Dr. Gyula Bischitz.

Éva Cseh

Note:

In the course of the rearrangement of the exhibition hall, the exhibited wood, wood-block print, the Genji album, the folding screen and a number of sword accessories were moved to the depository for protective purposes. In place of these objects some pieces of the collection of textile patterns are displayed. This collection was presented to the Museum in 1926 by József Varga, a professor of chemical technology at the University of Technology. It consists of more than 200 patterns (cuttings) collected by professor Vince Wartha, a renowned predecessor of Varga's. Originally, the patterns were fitted in an album that also dealt with his collection of Japanese ceramics. The collection of textile patterns lets us have a glance into the diversity of decorative patterns as well as into Japanese weaving techniques, those of nishiki, kinran and donsu textiles in particular.

Mónika Bincsik

György Ráth Memorial Room

At the time of the siege of Budapest in 1945, the furniture of one room alone of György Ráth's villa, the dining room on the first floor, remained in its original place. The restoration of the partially ruined furniture was carried out in the 1990s, and the dining room was opened to the public as a memorial room to the one-time owner of the building.