Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 5. (Budapest, 1962)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Major, Gyula: Memorial Exhibition of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts: The Art of Asia

the surrounding garden and with all his art-collection to the Hungarian State. In his will Ferenc Hopp named his love for his adopted nation as the motive of the gift, being raised thereby on the pedestal of progressive great capitalists whose memory is respected in Socialist states as well. The Directorium of Arts accepted the bequest and disposed, in accordance with the will of the donor, that all the oriental material preserved in other Hungarian Museums should be united with the Far Eastern collections of Ferenc Hopp in the new museum. Thus the Asia Museum, planned by the Hungarian Soviet Republic, came to being in the year of its existence. This institution was entitled therefore to a part in the jubilee celebrations as the only museum founded in the time of the Soviet Republic. Mr. Hopp, the founder of the Museum (1833—1919) died on September 9 at a high age, a few months after having made his donation. The executor of his last will and the accomplisher of his lofty idea was Zoltán Felvinczi Takáts, the first director of the museum. His valuable services must be mentioned in connection with this memorial exhibition in two respects especially. First of all it was Mr. Felvinczi Takáts who has given shape to the new museum, uniting the round 4000 works of art owned by Mr. Hopp and the Eastern Asiatic material of the different museums of Budapest. These national museums were already in possession of a significant amount of oriental art objects. A collection of 1500 pictures and prints was preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts (collection Vay de Vaja), about 1000 pieces excavated in the Caucasus and in the Altaï region in the Ethnographical Museum, (collection of E. Zichy), several hundred ceramics, metal objects and combs (collected by A. de Szemere), Gandhara stone carvings and Nepalese bronzes, presented by Imre Schwaiger, most important Indian sculptures of the PalaSena age, presented by Theodor Duka — all in the Industrial Art Mus e m, modern Japanese objects of art, especially pictures and metal works, bought at different world-exhibitions etc. Dr. Takáts, as the first director of the museum, had to register, to identify and to arrange this rich and manifold material for exhibition. He has accomplished this heavy task alone with modest technical assistance during more than 15 years, and almost twenty years went by before he could enlist a qualified collaborator. The other valuable service of Dr. Takáts is his untiring activity in publishing the material of the museum since the beginning, and his pioneer work in treating the history of Far Eastern art in Hungary, both for the use of professional literature and the wider Hungarian publicity. His research work and his results are known and taken into account not only in the West but also in the home of the arts in question, in the Far East. Owing to its almost nominal material resources, the stock of the art treasures of the Museum has increased very slowly between the two World Wars. The acquisition of some important pieces completing the collection was possible only through the alienation of several duplicates. After World War II. the Eastern Asiatic Museum entered a new prosperous era, accomplishing a swift and large-scale development, unimaginable before, in all respects. Before 1945 the museum preserved eight thousand five hundred objects ofart. This number has surpassed 20,000. The library of the museum has become five times richer than it was in 1945 and its annual increase is more than 500 volumes without periodicals, pamphlets etc. The area for m