Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)
Miklós GÁLOS: An Antonio Tempesta Rediscovered in the Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest
indicate that the central part of the frame was not affixed on the same side as it was when the work was found. In the photo, two hinges can be seen on one side of the frame, which have since completely disappeared, their prior existence indicated only by holes. According to the entry of the inventory of photonegatives: Wooden frame. Wood stained black, frame of Adam Elsheimer’s painting on lapis lazuli, inlays have fallen out. German, 16th c[entury], IM [Museum of Applied Arts], 19899.66 The entry, like the inventory record book itself, does not mention the damaged state of the picture. It is interesting, however, that this entry, in contrast to the record book, does not describe the picture as 16th- century German but instead attributes it to Adam Elsheimer, as does the acquisition record prepared four years earlier.67 This suggests that somebody in the 1940s noticed that the Museum of Fine Arts’ picture, also attributed to Elsheimer, and the Museum of Applied Arts’ work were by the same artist. That person could only have been József Höllrigl, who after working at the National Museum from 1937 to 1939 was the director of the Museum of Applied Arts until his retirement. This means he discovered not just one, but two Tempesta paintings. It is too bad that he did not publish this second—admittedly hypothetical—discovery. Archival photos would aid tremendously in the picture’s restoration—assuming the lapis lazuli work at that time was indeed intact, or at least more intact than at present. The hinges seen in the archival photo are puzzling. If we consider, based on the analogy of the Di Castro picture and the visible traces of fastening devices, that there was an ornament at the top of the frame, then the Museum of Applied Arts’ painting was meant to be hung. In this case, the hinges on the short side make no sense and must have been added later. If the hinges are original, then the work functioned as some kind of cabinet door; in this case, there would not have been any additional ornamentation outside the frame. As the hinges have not survived, we cannot examine them. Their traces, however, suggest unprofessional workmanship, in contrast to the carefully executed slots for the presumed top decoration. A door with an ebony frame and painted lapis lazuli insert, as a part of an aristocratic art cabinet, is not inconceivable. The Stipo d’Alemagna, which the Austrian Archduke Leopold V presented to Ferdinand II, the husband of Claudia de’ Medici, in April 1628, when he visited them in Innsbruck, was such a cabinet.68 The enormous two-meter-tall art cabinet, made in Augsburg workshops according to the requirements of the Augsburg art dealer Philipp Hainhofer (1581-1652), was covered in ebony veneer. Its doors had pietra dura inlays and was decorated with paintings on lapis lazuli. Here too the depictions were of biblical scenes. However, the size of the doors of this aristocratic gift, a superb example of this art form, does not match the scale of the recently discovered Tempesta picture. The analogous Di Castro picture and the likelihood of an ornament surmounting the frame suggest that the hinges seen in the archival photo were added later; thus what we have is an independent artwork. Contemporary sources that mention the double-sided paintings on lapis 28
