Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 25. (Budapest, 2007)

Ildikó PANDÚR: The Role of Gyula Jungfer in Hungary's National Exhibition of 1885

Company’s Ferencváros factory of the Metalworkers Company.47 The photo shows a close up of the statue erected in the pavilion, with a candelabra and small table (descendents of the Jungfer family posses a similar one) with a vase of iron flowers. These works were assembled together temporarily for the photograph as the paper background behind them suggests.

The recognition enjoyed by Gyula Jungfer is indicated by his being involved in the creation of the Royal Pavilion for the exhibition of 1885 (see Fig. 4). The small palace,48 which reflected the status of the monarch, occupied a prominent place among the buildings of the exhibition. It was not built by the National Exhibition Committee, or by the government, the aristocracy, a private company or a public body. Instead ‘it was built and furbished for Their Majesties the Members of the Royal Party by the joint efforts of the leading tradesmen of the city’,49 who ‘... by creating

Fig. 10 Danubius Fountain. By Leó Fessier

Fig. 11 Selection of exhibited pieces by Gyula Jungfer

the magnificent Royal Pavilion have shown not just patriotic self-sacrifice, but also the things of which they are capable’.50 Presumably, Miklós Ybl, the architect of the pavilion, personally invited the participation of artists he considered deserving, among them Jungfer,51 with whom he had worked on a regular basis since 1875. (Jungfer had made the railings for Ybl’s Castle Bazaar project.) For the outside of the Royal Pavilion, Jungfer made the enormous wrought-iron gate and lamps,52 as well as the chandeliers, candleholders, fireplace fittings,53 and window-grills for the interior.54 (Fig. 12-13). This building represented a shift from Neo-Renaissance to Neo- Baroque, in the work of Ybl and Jungfer alike.55

Artefacts exhibited at Hungary’s National Universal Exhibition of 1885 could be reproduced (drawn or photographed) only

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