Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 18. (Budapest, 1999)

New acquisitions 1998

tions. Manufacturers' and distributors' catalogues, already published in large numbers in the second half of the 19th century, recommended such pieces mainly for dining rooms and offices, but also for smoking rooms and libraries (see, for example, the one featured in an 1881 catalogue of English C & R Light firm, or Model 507 in an 1884 publication by the company Heal & Son). References to their use occurring in the English-language specialist literature come in the form of such expressions as "Smoker's chair", "Butler's chair" and "Library chair". In 1894 the photographer György Klösz published an album entitled "English furniture in the Museum of Commerce's Interim Exhibition", on the fifth plate of which is a piece which is analogous to the Furniture Collection's new chair. When we compare the two pieces, only very small differences can be seen: certain parts of the Collection's armchair - for example, the arm supports are more finely worked. In the photograph a separate, removable leather cushion placed on the seat, and the casters on the legs, can be seen clearly. Unfortunately beyond the album's title and the date of publication there is no textual information of any kind on the purpose of the publication, or more exactly on the origin, types and manufacturers of the pieces - first and foremost - seating and small pieces of furniture. The primary aim of the Museum of Commerce founded by the Royal Hungarian Minister of Commerce in 1886 was to provide Hungarian manufacturers the ongoing opportunity to display their output, and by so doing to encourage customers to buy Hungarian products. Besides its permanent exhibition displayed in the Hall of Industry, the Museum of Commerce also organized temporary exhibitions, at which foreign products were often displayed, in order to serve as models to be followed by Hungarian craftsmen. One of these exhibitions was the display of English furniture mentioned above. Later, at a new permanent exhibition opened in August 1897 to great interest, two separate rooms were devoted to English furniture, which "the Minister of Commerce purchased in England, in order provide Hungarian furnituremakers models worthy of being copied". In the last decade of the 19th century English furniture became especially fashionable. One of the most spectacular manifestations of this was the furnishing of the Park Club. The creation of the club, which was organized by the aristocracy and which served as a place to spend time in a pleasant and diverting way, was initiated in 1893 by Baron Béla Atzél, among others, who took it upon himself to furnish the club's Eclectic building designed by Artúr Meinig on Budapest's Stefánia út. For all the rooms the baron had the furniture — which was in excellent taste - imported from England, but this action produced a lively response. A heated debate developed in the press on how Hungarian craftsmen could have been so blatantly eschewed in such a place, which was much visited by potential customers. In volume one of Magyar Iparművészet (1897-98, No. 2, pp. 335-334) Kamill Fittler put a stop to the debate. In a long study he acquainted readers with the antecedents, with the building, the furniture, and the viewpoint of Baron Atzél, who admitted that he had not found the Hungarian products sufficiently striking and inventive, and that he had made a special effort that the club's furniture should serve as models. In the rich illustrative material accompanying the study there is a photograph of one of the ground-floor dining rooms, in which, around a table, chairs very similar to the one now in our collection can be recognized (p. 336). Perhaps as a result of the Museum of Commerce's successful exhibition and may-