Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 23. (Budapest, 2004)
Györgyi FAJCSÁK: Bertalan Hatvány, an unknown Connoisseur of Oriental Art
1980s in the possession of János Horváth, a close friend of the family. On the basis of the net profit shown in the annual internal accounts, the family members were entitled to [certain assigned] percentage shares; the appropriate amounts were credited to their private accounts. This profit-distribution process they referred to as 'discharging'." 60 In 1921, Bertalan Hatvany's share was 5%, and in 1933, 6.7%. For comparison we may note that his cousin, the painter and art-collector Ferenc Hatvány, in the same two years received respectively 11% and 12.8 %. During the Second World War Bertalan Hatvany's collection was, alas, completely dispersed. During 1942-43, the most valuable items were transferred to the safe-deposit vault of a Budapest bank (Pesti Magyar Kereskedelmi Bank), 61 and some of his books were relocated to the family estate-farm in Pélpuszta. 62 However, the objects from the bank safe-deposit were after January 1945 "taken possession of by a special division of the Soviet Red Army, the Economic Commissars Committees. These objects in the care of the Red Army were in July 1945 transferred by truck to an unknown location, and are today most probably held in Russia. A few individual items of the Hatvány collection have nevertheless since come to light. In this connection we can perhaps assume - on the basis of László Mravik's research that the Soviet officers gave some of the smaller art-objects in lieu of wages to the Hungarian workers involved in packing up the items from the bank vault. 63 III. Analysis of the Hatvány collection It may be said of the Hatvány collection, with its 15-year history that, of the oriental collections of the first half of the twentieth century, this was one of the most systematic in its conception and plan. 64 The principle and consistency of collection was exemplary, as was the quality which may be said to have shone forth from the objects themselves. As mentioned, the initial development of the collection took place over an astonishingly short period: namely from 1925, the time of Hatvany's first Asian journey, to 1929, the first (and major) occasion on which it was exhibited. We may however note that he began collecting at a very favourable period: just at the time when, in the 1920s, the attention of collectors was turning to ancient (archaeological) Chinese art-objects. On the one hand, Hatvány was an expert in oriental art-history, and moreover kept himself up-to-date in reading the latest publications on Chinese art-history; while at the same time he was himself a genuine collector, who boldly and consistently followed his own independent collecting principles. Knowing all this, we must regret all the more keenly the fact that the collection never attained fulfilment: as recounted above, it was dispersed before it could be completed. The dominance of sculptures - mainly Buddhist ones - among his purchases is a characteristic reflection of Hatvany's collecting principles. Already around 1900 it was noticeable that the interest of European collectors turned more and more towards oriental sculptures; two Hungarian examples are the Delmár and the Ágai collections. 65 Although in the 17 th and 18" 1 centuries there was great European interest in Chinese art, this was overwhelmingly focused on porcelain and lacquer-work considered simply as art-objects. This interest is witnessed by the vast numbers of such objects which were exported from China at this time. From the end of the 19 lh century, due to growing interest in esoteric teachings and in Buddhism, 66 collectors' attention gradually turned to sculpture objects, and this naturally had an influence on general European tastes in such art. This was assisted by the fact that in China this type of object had never been highly valued. This development in turn was connected with the bringing to light of objects in China through archaeological excavation. The pioneer of the archaeological approach to art-history was an American sinologist, Berthold Laufer, who between 1901 and 1904 carried out three years of very significant excavations in China. His findings appeared in his two monographs on Chinese ceramics 67 ' 68 published in
