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

Magdolna LICHNER: Data on Gyula Benczúr's Collection of Textiles

MAGDOLNA LICHNER DATA ON GYULA BENCZÚR'S COLLECTION OF TEXTILES In 1925, five years after Gyula Benczúr's death, an exhibition opened at the Museum of Applied Arts which presented a part of the painter's textile collection/ The exhibition was one of a series which in the 1920s displayed collections belonging to wealthy Hungarian private collectors, principally those in Budapest,

2 as if to supplement the material held by the museums, since in these years the lot of public collections was a difficult one: seldom could they stage new exhibitions from their own material, and only then at the cost of great difficulties. Strict state budgetary controls on account of the economic crisis which followed the First World War precluded the purchase of new art objects. For this reason it is especially noteworthy that despite limited means, Gyula Vegh, the director-general of the Museum of Applied Arts, could take advantage of the opportunity offered to him by Gyula Benczúr's children. Eventually, of the 300 textiles and costumes exhibited, approximately fifty passed into the Museum's possession/ Selection was made on the basis of filling gaps: in other words, exemplars illustrating the history of costume were favoured, and naturally those pieces of outstanding value were chosen/ These velvets, silks and costumes - besides their art history value are especially important for us when we wish to discover individual pieces in works by the master. The painter's daughter Ida Benczúr - who was herself a painter remembered thus: 'The weapons, tools and clothes were all prepared for the canvas by way of studies, and most of them after originals. Despite his great knowledge and the fact that he knew all costumes intimately, he would persist until he had an original." In other words, her father deicted clothes and weapons on the basis of originals,

5 just as he prefaced the working out of large-scale compositions with a series of studies, live models and sets/ This would deserve further research. A reconstruction of Gyula Benczúr's art collection (which consisted of several hundred artefacts) performable on the basis of pieces and data can, along with possibly important information, help us to get to know the artist's historical approach and his methods as a painter. The possibility for the reconstruction is based on an inventory preserved in the archives of the Hungarian National Gallery. Dr. Károly Layer, the senior curator of the National Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts, took over from the Benczúr heirs the 300 art objects which had been selected from the painter's collection for the exhibition (fig. 1-2.). However, a survey of the objects purchased (they can be located using their present inventory numbers, published in the Appendix) enables us to follow the course of a collection built up with a painter's eye and with a regard for art - merely the course, because we have no knowledge of what happened to them after the purchase.

7 In our case the purpose of the research is to