Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 24. (Budapest, 2006)
Györgyi FAJCSÁK: Exibition of Oriental Arts, 1929 - Collecting Chinese artefacts in Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s
relics of Chinese art won great reputation; China was termed the birthplace of Far Eastern art and its influence was compared to that of Greek art. 1 " Getting to know Chinese art outlined the chronology of the history of Oriental arts and threw light on the relation of art in certain fields. As for Chinese collections, it was the material related to the early dynasties that became prominent. The collectors were inclined to deal with those groups of objects that - due to their antecedents in the history of collecting or to their art history relations - were easy to place in the general history of art. Owing to their antecedents in the history of collecting, classical Chinese ceramics, ancient lacquer objects and Buddhist statues formed such groups. Collecting ritual bronze objects formed a new field of collecting; its context was provided by excavations. Painting was the only branch of art which, due to lingual problems and the peculiar system of Chinese aesthetics of art, preserved inaccessibility to a certain degree. In Europe, associations and societies of friends of Oriental arts served as a catalyst of collecting. In London, in 1921 a society of enthusiastic collectors (The Oriental Ceramic Society) was formed; its objective was to collect and research early Chinese ceramics and to publish the results." George Eumorfopoulos (1863-1939), a businessman of Greek origin became the first chairman of the society. The society was established after the model of English clubs; its members were not only the successful representatives of contemporary British economy, but scholars, art historians and museum experts as well. Among its members there were prominent collectors, such as Sir Percival David (1892-1964), Oscar Raphael (1874-1941), Arthur Lonsdale Hetherington, Kenneth Robert Malcolm (19081984) and Harry James Oppenheim (7-1946). The society maintained close connections with major public collections (Robert Lockhart Hobson [1872-1941], the curator of the British Museum and Bernard Rackham, the curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum, were members of the society). They formed an elite; the foundation-stone of their relation was that all of them collected old Oriental ceramics. Being recognized scholars or businessmen, they had extensive social relations and all of them lived in the British capital. The objects of the members' collections were regularly exhibited in the Victoria & Albert Museum. To spread the results of scientific research, they published the society's journal Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society (TOCS), which they sent to contemporary museums and scientific institutes free of charge. In the second half of the 1920s, they started to publish the collections of the society's members. Between 1925 and 1928, Eumorfopoulos's collection of ceramics described by Hobson were published in six volumes (the collection contained 2400 pieces of Chinese ceramics); in 1927-28, his paintings (catalogued by Laurence Binyon) were published; in 1929-30 the publication of bronzes and the objects of other collections was launched with W. Percival Yetts's professional assistance. After 1933, the Oriental Ceramic Society underwent a considerable change: the exclusive, private club transformed into a society whose members were willing to play a social role. The number of members grew to a significant extent: while at the time of its foundation, there were 14 members, now there were 125. However, their original objective, that is, getting to know Oriental ceramics as well as making them known, had not changed. The formation of the Oriental Ceramic Society meant an important dividing line in the history of collection works of Oriental arts. The society coordinated collectors and museum experts and gave a focus to their research activity. Il gave a new direction to understanding Oriental arts and was aware of the fact that it was the collections and donations of private collectors that constituted the way of leading from art trade to the enrichment of public collections. Similar societies were formed all over Europe. In Germany, the Society of the Friends of Oriental Arts (Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst) was formed in 1926 (in Vienna, it worked under the name Verein der Freunde Asiatischer Kunst und Kultur); in 1929, the China Club was established in Stockholm; in Budapest, it was the Association of Hungarian Collectors and Art Lovers that co-ordinated collectors of Oriental
