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

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

shining, dull - can follow the spectacle only faintly, and never approach illusion made by his brushstrokes. The characteristics of the folds and tears in the drapery can be seen and pointed out only after lengthy observation and practice, but this means that Benczúr stuck to the velvet, the silk and the general characteristics of other fabrics, and only seldom can we recognize an individual feature, colour or pattern in a specific piece. Despite all this it has been possible to find two pieces of the surviving textiles from the collection in particular pictures. It appears that in the works The Capture of Ferenc II Rákóczi at His Castle at Nagysáros (received with acclaim in Hungary),

2 only a sketch of which is owned by the Hungarian National Gallery (fig. 5.), painted in 1869 in his last year at the master-school, and in The Arrest of Louis 28 XVI and His Family at Versailles (fig. 6.), painted in 1871, we encounter Rococo atlas embellished with silk embroidery purchased from his collection (fig. 7.).

29 In the middle field filled with light and stressing the axis of the painting in both pictures we see depiction of the material at issue. In our possession we have a similar piece, a silk brocade waistband which, with its colours and flower motifs, recalls the painted surface (fig. 8.)/° Based on this example we may assume that Benczúr began his collection of textiles and costumes during his Munich years. This assumption is reinforced by the fact that he received commissions from King Ludwig II of Bavaria, a monarch who was a great partisan of Baroque pomp and 18th-century French painting. In this way Benczúr was given a commission to paint scenes from the lives of Louis XV and Louis XVl/

; Presumably it was for these paintings that he sought out the first pieces in his collection. The 1925 exhibition featured numerous costumes and fabrics from the 18th century. In the receipt signed by Károly Layer, the curator of the exhibition, more than seventy entries are listed: fabrics, men's and women's clothing, and shoes/

2 A third of the art works purchased by the Museum of Applied Arts date from this period (fig. 9.)/ Outstanding among these are two men's coats from the late 18th century: their edges, pockets and sleeves feature rich flower embellishments stitched with silk thread (MAA Inv. Nos.: 16.169, 16.170). The women's costumes also stand out on account of their rich embroidery (MAA Inv. Nos.: 16.174 a-b, 16.178). Their woven base fabrics have become threadbare over the years, but despite this the ornamentation sewn onto them is still astonishing in its beauty. Another motif which can be identified with tolerable certainty can be seen on the figure of Abdurrahman pasha in the largescale picture The Recapture of Buda Castle in 1686. A rosette embroidered on red velvet on the breast part of his caftan conspicuously resembles an embellishment on an ornamented saddlecloth in the collection, one supposedly of Turkish origin (fig. 10-11.)/

4 This, Benczúr's best-known work, was painted between 1884 and 1896, and it is very likely that he acquired the Turkish and Albanian clothing/

5 along with the horse accoutrements/

0 in his collection for this work. It is interesting that the painter did not always insist on historical accuracy, often subordinating the attire of the protagonists to their place in the composition or to the meaning of the picture. A possible example of this is the shepherd's cloak motif which occurs twice in The Recapture of Buda Castle: in the attire of a Hungarian soldier behind Prince Eugene of Savoy and on the saddlecloth of the Hungarian warrior blowing his bugle. At the 1925 exhibition, among the short overcoats and the other clothes made from felt, the public were able to see two Halina felt pieces embroidered with cotton thread (fig. 12-13)/

7 It is obvious that Benczúr included the decorated shepherd's cloak in the painting