Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)

HORVÁTH Hilda: Vázlat egy műgyűjtemény sorsáról

connected with French kings and Napoleon were down, thus he managed to buy several Napoleonic pieces. His collection, like most of the others at that time, was rather mixed, containing paintings and objects of applied arts, which at the same time decorated the interior of his buildings. An interesting chronological coherence - though not a strict order - can be observed among the pieces place in the different buildings: he furnished each castle, palace or fortress according to a different taste or stylistic period. Bajmóc and Bazin were full of Late Medieval relics and objects from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The ancient castle of Bajmóc was renovated by the architect József Huber according to the ideas of Count Pálffy: it was turned into a French Gothic knight's castle. In Pozsony, the furniture was mainly Louis XIV and XV, while Vienna represented the Empire taste. Királyfa was furnished according to the age of Maria Theresa - thus, each interior could gain a special atmosphere.

7 Count Pálffy's testimony, dated November 14, 1907 and announced on June 3, 1908 at the Royal Court of Justice in Pozsony, said in Paragraph X that more than 150 ancient and modern paintings from his Pozsony, Budapest and Vienna palaces and from his Bazin castle was to be donated to the Hungarian National Museum. These were taken over, as a permanent deposit, by the Museum of Fine Arts.

8 According to Paragraph VTTI, the treasures and paintings of his Királyfa and Bajmóc castles and the rest in his Pozsony and Vienna palaces are to be maintained on the spot as a museum.

9 After the count's death (1908), the court asked experts to estimate the valuables and make the inventory: the objects of applied arts were listed by Jenő Radisics, the contemporary director of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts , who introduced the Pálffy bequest in various studies. He added that "...any piece that was listed in the inventory would make the highest price at an auction abroad."

11 The invaluable treasures of the heritage were sued and the long legal procedure was still going on at the end of World War I. Even the Hungarian Minister of Religion and Education was unable to do anything to protect the treasures at the end of 1918 and in early 1919, though he agreed with Géza Andrássy, the son of Gabriella Pálffy who was the most closely concerned, that the treasures in North-Hungary should be secured until the negotiations end with a decision.

12 Inspite of his effort the pieces, taken away from their original place, were partly acquired by the Slovakian museum that was organized in the 1920s, while the greatest part of the treasures of the originally Hungarian private collection was auctioned by the East-Slovakian Museum.

13 The rarities of the Viennese palace - after the Austrian state refused the maintenance of the building and the collection - were in the end auctioned in 1921. The auction, yielding 92 million koronás (korona was the contemporary devisa in Hungary) received a great attention. The objects partly remained in Vienna, partly - first of all the unique Empire relics - were purchased by French collectors.

14 The reconstruction of the rooms in the Pálffy-palaces and castles, at least in theory, requires further study and research, using contemporary descriptions and photos. Unfortunately, there is no chance to reconstruct the interiours, to gain all the relics back to their original place, in the spirit of the owner's will. Nevertheless, one or two excellent and unique objects d'art could certainly be seen in private or public collections abroad.