Agria 43. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2007)
Palmer Matthew: Alexandriai Szent Katalin szobrának új datálása
from the vicinity of the chancel, it would have had to have been transferred from the old structure to the new. The loss of both St Catherine's and Maxentius's heads and arms suggests that they were the victims of iconoclasm, presumably at the hands of the Hussites, who inflicted damage so severe as to necessitate the repairs on the cathedral carried out during the episcopacies of János Bekensloer (1468-74) and Gábor Rangoni (1475-86), which led ultimately to the construction of a new chancel. 15 It is difficult to imagine the damaged figure being reused in the new chancel as sculpture and, if one is prepared to accept the above hypothesis, what remained of the statue would have been used as building material instead. That the statue was not included in the Sigismundus rex et imperátor: Művészet és kultúra Luxemburgi Zsigmond korában 1387-1437 exhibition, held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest in the spring of last year, was a disappointment, especially considering the attention the medieval diocese of Eger had been given at the previous major Sigismund exhibition held at Buda Castle in 1987, when Károly Kozák contributed an essay to the catalogue. 16 Despite its discovery the previous year, it was a fragment containing a passage of drapery and a (right) foot, placed on a console with a rosette motif, also excavated in the vicinity of the Dobó Bastion, rather than the remains of the figure of St Catherine, that was exhibited, accompanied by a catalogue entry which noted that it "betrayed a previously unsuspected quality of artistic endeavour" at Eger Cathedral. 17 Had the St Catherine been included in the 2006 exhibition, the general public would have been given a much clearer idea of the extent of Eger's cultural achievements during the Late Middle Ages. In its absence, however, was there anything in the 2006 Sigismund exhibition that can help improve our understanding of the Eger St Catherine? Compared with the 1987 exhibition, its 2006 counterpart provided two new insights offering a radically new context in which to attempt a dating of the Eger figure: firstly the notion that the transition between the Angevin and the Luxemburgian eras was characterised by continuity rather than change, and secondly that the Buda Statues excavated in 1974 may been carved considerably earlier than had been previously thought. 18 15 DÉTSHY Mihály-KOZÁK Károly 1972. 133. 16 KOZÁK Károly 1987. Vol. 1. 297-301. 17 MAROSI Ernő 1987. Vol. 2. 274. 18 TAKÁCS Imre 2006. 68-85. The predominant view that the Buda Statues date from the 1420s, as part of the enlargement of the royal palace following Sigismund's election as King of the Romans in 1411, has been challenged by Michael Viktor Schwarz and Lothar Schultes, who suggest an earlier date of с 1400. For criticisms and rival arguments see Marosi Ernő 1994. 286. MAROSI Ernő "Fünfzig Jahre Herrschaft Sigismunds in der Kunstgeschichte" in PAULY Michel, REINART François (eds) 2006. 259-262. 768
