Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 31. (2003)
VÁROSTÖRTÉNETI TANULMÁNYOK - Szilárdfy Zoltán: Meditációs képek a budavári klarisszák hagyatékából 271-287
SZILÁRDFY ZOLTÁN Pictures of Contemplation from the Bequest of the Clarissan Order from Buda Castle The legal successors of the Clarissan nunnery moved back to Budavár from Pozsony (Pressburg) in 1714. The convent dedicated to the Immaculata was completed in 1748 in which there was a new Heart of Jesus altar. From 1756 there is an altarpiece with Jesus praying on the Mount of Olives. Joseph II. dissolved the order in 1782 and all the furnishings were scattered in auctions. Most of the altarpieces and pictures were taken to the new parish church on the Piliscsaba estate but it is impossible to say whether they are identical with the first three recorded altarpieces from 1748 or they are the later depictions of the agonising Christ. The heterogeneous composition was probably created by Anna Erzsébet, the daughter of the György Falkoner, an artist of Scottish origin who settled down in Buda at the end of the 18 th century (1714-1790) but she was known as sister Zsófia in the convent and she took part in the interior decorations of the convent's church. The iconography of the altarpiece reflects the meditative spirit of the order. The main theme is Christ perspiring blood, who is embraced by the angel of solace in his agony of fear. The actual realisation is related to the form and style of Georg Raphael Dormer (1693-1741) and Paul Tróger (1698-1762). The depiction of the Purgatory has a double topicality: on the one hand it reflects the pious processioners' practice of the Franciscans, and it is to strengthen people's faith. After the Council of Trent this topic took the place of the depiction of the limbo, so popular in the Middle Ages. The consoling angel invites the contemplating souls to propitiate. The main features of the late mediaeval devotio moderna are the compassion with the God-man suffering for us, and the taking over of deeply sympathetic solidarity. The practice of pious propitiation which culminated in the worship of the Heart of Jesus is probably related to the mystery of Christ being comforted in his fear of death. In the foreground of the picture the icon of the Heart of Jesus worshipped by the Ursulite nuns from Pozsony can be recognised. (Probably the Clarissan nuns had been influenced by the cult of the Heart of Jesus in Pozsony after they moved to Buda where they founded the Society of the Heart of the Saviour in the convent on 21 December 1742 and the membership booklet was decorated with a watercolour by Sister Zsófia Falkoner depicting the Holy Heart.). The motifs on the altarpiece representing the kneeling Mater Dolorosa opposite Christ are almost unprecedented in Christian iconography. (The print by G. B. Götz is the first of this kind and Joseph Kollanetz made a similar copperplate engraving inspired by him.) The other altarpiece from Piliscsaba which originally must have been opposite the Heart of Jesus altar is an allegory of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. There is a shining triangle over the horizon representing the Holy Trinity with the eye of God's Providence, we can read the initials of Mary underneath, and we can see a burning heart with a crown of roses and the dagger of pain crowned by rays of light in the middle. There used to be a Society of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary in Pozsony and probably there were several nuns among its members who later moved to Buda. ( In 1782 the nuns brought their religious objects as souvenirs or devotional objects, very often of artistic quality.) An oil portrait of Magdalena Beutler (fl458), a Clarissan nun from Freiburg got into the possession of the Franciscans in Eger, 286
