Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 32. (Budapest, 2018)

Miklós GÁLOS: An Antonio Tempesta Rediscovered in the Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest

MIKLÓS GÁLOS

AN ANTONIO TEMPESTA REDISCOVERED IN THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF APPLIED ARTS,

BUDAPEST

1. 1926—a new Tempesta in Budapest

In the autumn of 1926, József Höllrigl, curator of antiquities at the National Museum in Budapest, was trying to organize the piles of tiles and stone fragments in the lapidarium, which at the time served as a kind of storehouse closed to the public. Höllrigl’s attention was drawn to several red and grey, marble-like stone pieces, nine

altogether, which bore traces of paint. These fragments fit together to form a nearly complete oval stone slab, which after cleaning revealed a depiction of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea (Fig. 1).

The image was both a work painted by an artist and an object created by nature. The sea was represented by a swath of red that traversed the stone, with occasional patches of fine paint. The grey parts of the

1. Antonio Tempesta: The Crossing of the Red Sea, oil on breccia, 1610s, 38x56 cm, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, 2018

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