Vezető a Déri Múzeum kiállításaihoz (Debrecen, 1978)

English Summary

THE HUNGARIAN AND FOREIGN FINE ARTS IN THE 15TH—19TH CENTURIES The Hungarian Money and Coins of Four Centuries (16th—19th centuries) The major part of our drawings represents the events, the anonymous parinduces the artist to express himself in a condensed way and to use special technique. The plates of the coins, similarly to portraiture or battle paintings, are very strongly bound to the era through the personality who orders them. It is an acknowledged fact that the medal cabinet of the Hungarian National Museum is a considerable one among the collections of medals of the worldfamous museums. Our medal cabinet is the second after the collection of the National Museum. Déry Frigyes, the founder, bought the outstanding pieces of the numismatic collection from families well-known in history (Festetics, Windischgrätz, Habsburg-house). The Hungarian matter of the collection, consisting of 3179 pieces, is specially homogeneous. The sorting of the 101 coins is instructive also for experts. They are the following: the coins and medals of the Hungarian Monarchy (16th

—18th centuries) and of Transylvania (16th

—18th centuries) (fig. 1.) and the Hungarian medals (17th— 19th centuries) fig. 2.). Foreign and Hungarian Drawings of the 15th

—17th centuries The coin, an art form of small sculpture is cognate with relief, but its size takers and formers and the innumerous scenes of our history. Our oldest wooden carving is more than five hundred year-old. The artists who made the drawings are German, Austrian, Dutch, Italian, French and

—much later, for historical reasons

—Hungarian artists. And who are the represented persons? They are statemen, military leaders, scientists, economists, patrons of art, writers, poets and translators. The majority of the works is etching and impression. Our oldest wooden carving was made in the work-shop of Michael Wohlgemuth (1434—1519), the alter-piece and miniature painter and wood engraver and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (1450—1494), the painter. 1st title is: The Castle of Buda in the Days of King Matthias (fig. 3.). This is the oldest and most authentic presenting of the castle of Buda. The wooden engraving, the explaining text and paper material of this sheet is identical with the wooden engraving of a book-curiosity, entitled Liber Chronicarum written by Hartman Schedel, kept in the Library of the Lutheran Theological Academy of Debrecen (page CXXXIX) (Nürnberg

: Anton Koberger. 12. July 1493. 2°. 326. ff). It is known that also Albrecht Dürer, whose predecessor had emigrated from East-Hungary, studied in the workshop of the artist who made the wooden carving presenting the castle of 414