Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 8. (Budapest, 1965)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Dr. Zoltán Felvinczi Takáts 1880-1904

keep him at home. He went on having a share in our work, was glad of our new possibilities and was always ready to help with advice. In his devoted affection towards everything that concerned the Museum and Oriental art history he had been and shall be our ideal. It is really due to him that the Oriental museology has been introduced to Hungary. As an assistant-keeper of the Museum of Fine Arts he completed the catalogue of a Japanese collection purchased by Count Peter Vay from a government grant in 1906. This was his start in this new field. He opened the first exhibition of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts in 1922. From that time on, his writings have been published in the best known periodicals (Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, Asia Major, Artibus Asiae, Revue des Arts Asiatiques, etc.). Two questions stood in the foreground of his researches : the infmence of the art of India and Eastern Asia upon the art of the migration period in Hungary and the reconstruction of Wu Tao-tze's style. In 1936 he finally achieved his long cherished aim, the often scheduled lecture and study trip to India and Eastern Asia. This occasion meant more than the personal acquaintance of art objects and monuments, already well known by him, it enlarged his researches and also gave him the chance for purchases made for the Museum, mostly from his own pocket. But above all, it was a wonderful opportunity for a complete absorption of the special condition of life and culture there, which either in their few remaining traces, or mostly still surviving were behind the creative forces. A few years after his return, as University professor, he had to divide his time between the Museum and University. He could share the experiences and knowledge of a laborious and rich life with the new generation. The misery of the war restrained him in his work and in the final stage made him also homeless. Still, he was among the first, after the liberation, to take up the educational work and to begin the rebuilding of the Museums. In his last years he was working on the biography of Ferenc Hopp. He went over the entire collection again. Unfortunately, he could not finish it. He left it for us to do and it is also to us to succeed him in serving the Museum with the same devotion that he did. We will always cherish his memory.