Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 23. (Budapest, 2004)

Györgyi FAJCSÁK: Bertalan Hatvány, an unknown Connoisseur of Oriental Art

Takács that he frequently visited major European cities - London,

48 Paris, Berlin - to view important exhibitions. He gradually became an expert on Chinese art.

49 He was familiar with major dealers in oriental art of the time: C. T. Loo (Paris),

50 Imre Schwaiger (London, Delhi)

5

', Edgar Worch (Berlin). In the winter of 1935-36 he wrote a long account of the exhibition of Chinese art held at the London Royal Academy (Burlington House); this appeared in the journal Szép Szó under the title London 1936, or Oriental Art and Western Man." In this article he gives a clear picture of his concept of Chinese art, and consequently also of his philosophy as a collector. From the London exhibition, he emphasised the bronze artefacts of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and Chinese painting, as being the most important areas of Chinese art. Hatvány considered that the symbolism and the spiritual content of these artefacts was the best means to present the spirit of Chinese art to Western man. Because of his personal preferences and attractions, his best-loved objects were those items of Buddhist art under Greek and Persian influence depicting human beings. He writes in this article: "The years of the mighty Tang-dynasty (A.D. 618-906) marked a flowering of the depiction of the human figure in Buddhist sculpture, and in miniature tomb figures. It is perhaps here that we can best grasp that aspect of Far Eastern art which is most genuinely and essentially Chinese. The concept of harmony, the melding of the part with the whole, give to the worldpicture the basic tone which De Groot so aptly calls universism. That which is important is not the individual in isolation, and the conflict is not that between man and the world. The individual has a right to exist - we may even say, exists - only as a part, a constituent part, of his environment."

53 In the 1930s Hatvány developed close ties with the Ferenc Hopp Museum. He followed the development of the museum with intent interest, took pains to inform himself of the details of new acquisitions,

54 and even himself wrote about the museum.

55 The development of Hatvany's collection in the 1930s can be linked with his second Asian journey. From his letters we know that during his 1938-39 travels in India, Indo-China and South-East Asia he purchased nearly three dozen precious objects. It was mainly his acquisitions of sculptures (Gandhara, Taxila, Gupta, Burmese Buddhist objects, Khmer pieces) that he reported in detail to Zoltán Felvinczi Takács. He intended to send several items home for present to the Hopp Museum,

56 as they were documented in the official letters of the Ferenc Hopp Museum

57 (small Khmer statues, Indian metal boxes, lacquer box, wood blocks, Indian miniatures, clay seals, etc.) The expansion of Hatvany's collection was founded on the basic concept of gathering together specimens of those Asian sculptures which developed from Hellenistic roots. The items purchased during the 1938-39 journey did not represent a new object-group. Rather, the novelty lay in the expansion of the geographical range: the collection became richer in material from India, Indo-China and SouthEast Asia. The collection as a whole was not exhibited during the 1930s. In 1933 Hatvány temporarily loaned a few minor objects to the Hopp Museum, to be displayed in the exhibition titled The Art of Great Asia held to commemorate the 100'

h birth-anniversary of Ferenc Hopp.

58 The development of the collection in the 1930s appears somewhat modest, in comparison with its explosive growth in the early stages. The background to this may perhaps be partly ascribed to a serious financial loss which Hatvány suffered in 1929, and which he referred to in an interview late in his life.

59 Another possible factor might be his Jewish origins, which at this particular period put him in a position where his whole financial status, and even his life, were under threat. Nevertheless, he was at this time still able to receive his income from his share of the profits of the family firm. György Kövér in his economic history of the Ignác Deutsch Company writes: "Today we know of two such [profit-sharing] agreements; these documents [for the years 1921 and 1933] were in the early