Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 12. (Budapest, 1970)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: The Foundation and Development of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts

middle of the 4th century and representing one of the most important pictorial documents of that time. The copies were made by a group of the best Korean painters in 1954. The villa of Ferenc Hopp was just large enough for the owner's collection. Already at the time of the transfer of the Oriental collection of Budapest museums, there was much material which couldn't be exhibited and lived the life of the storage-rooms. 1949 when the staff of the museum was doubled from three and the library was transferred and extended for bureaues, we had to take away three rooms from the exhibition. Only four rooms were left ever since creating a hard situation. We could do but one thing, to change the material from year to year. Simultaneously we started to bring exhibitions on tour to the museums of the countryside. Finally, in 1954, we received another small museum building, located not further than 5 minutes distance from us, the former György Rath Museum whose very valuable collection, including a Rembrandt, was divided between the Museums of Fine and Industrial Arts. There we could exhibit a part of our China Collection. For storage we got a wing in the Museum of Industrial Art. In the past twenty years we had the following exhibitions: The Art of China, The Art of India, The Art of Burma, Siam and Indonesia, The tomb nr. III. of Anak, Korea, The Art of Vietnam, The Art of Old and New China, Japanese Prints, Far-Eastern Prints, The Art of Asia, The Painting in China, Eastern Asiatic Silks, Lacquers and Porcelain, The Art of the Edo period. The Jubilee Exhibition — which we are going to visit this afternoon — is divided between our two exhibition galleries. In the Hopp Museum, we displayed Jenő Zichy's archaeological collections of Caucasus and Siberia, the arts of the Middle East, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia, while the China Museum — for this occasion only — includes besides China, the other Far-Eastern countries as well, that is, Japán, Korea and Vietnam. Because we could exhibit only what we have thought to be outstanding either by their aesthetical value or by a relative rareness of representation or by any of their importance from the art-historian point of view. We have tried to be fair to each of the countries exhibited determined by the largeness or the smallness of the collection. Within the material we followed the historical sequence. However we were obliged to make an exception of these principles, in the case of the Japanese Art. In the exhibition only one room could be reserved for this. So we could not represent well our Japanese Collection which is the second largest after the Chinese. But since a period of more than a year, terminated by the end of December 1968, we had on view — in the Hopp Museum — The Art of the Edo Period 1603—1867, an opportunity was afforded to us at this time to turn to the earlier periods, from the 8th century up to 1600. The China Museum got new showcases for this exhibition. We tried to make a modern styled display there. We look forward to hear your opinion about it. Any criticism will be welcome.