Dénesi Tamás (szerk.): Collectanea Sancti Martini - A Pannonhalmi Főapátság Gyűjteményeinek Értesítője 8. (Pannonhalma, 2020)

II. Gyűjteményeinkből

Szeder Fábián vagy Wirth Adorján? 129

Péter Tanai

Fábián Szeder or Adorján Wirth? Rectifying a mistaken portraitidentification

The present paper sets down the rectification of the descriptive data of a 19th

centu

ry painting published earlier on the World Wide Web with mistaken details.

According to the identification spread all over the World Wide Web, the painting portrays Fábián Szeder, who was the superior and headmaster of many Benedictine monastic residences and secondary schools in Hungary, then an archivist, a librarian and a warden of the garden in Pannonhalma, and the manager of the estates in Füss. The classification of the numismatic collection, taking the inventory of the library’s holdings and that of many other collections, designing the botanical gardens in Pannonhalma and Bakonybél are linked to his name, and in addition, he is also respected as the one who created the study of descriptive ethnography and the research of ethnic groups in Hungary.

After completing a special survey of the record system of the paintingcollection in the Museum of the Archabbey of Pannonhalma, which is a record system that has been continuous since the establishment of the collection, the fact became unambiguous that the painting portrays Adorján Wirth, the superior and headmaster of the monastic residences and secondary schools in Nagyszombat and later in Kőszeg

. The wrong piece of information might have been the result of a mistaken identification within the framework of a project (carried out in Pannonhalma between 2000 and 2005) creating a database of the Museum’s collections searchable on the Internet.