Gosztonyi Ferenc - Király Erzsébet - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2002-2004. 24/9 (MNG Budapest, 2005)

INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH. PHD THESES AT THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL GALLERY - Anna Jávor: The Oeuvre of Johann Lucas Kracker (1719-1779)

in the 'service' of the bishop of Eger can unfortunately be inferred almost exclusively from the magnificent ceiling frescos he made for the Premonstratensians of Nová Rise. The Tate Kracker' we best know for his frescoes in the Eger Lyceum (University) seems even in his last years to have returned - to finish important assignments to his first customer in Hungary, the Moravian Sauberer abbot, in Jászó and Felső-Mecenzéf (Vysny Medzev). The historical-analytical chapters rely on archive sources, and the latter are accordingly assessed in the study itself. New data emerged from documents in Vienna relating to his family and his studies at the Academy (1719-1740). Research on Kracker and Pilgram in Brno revealed evidence of his relations to the town of Znojmo, and the first mention of Kracker in an 1752 letter and some later ones in the correspondence of Sauberer, provost of the Jászó monastery (1748-1761). The journal of the Paulines of Varannó (1754-1755) adds to an already known wealth of data from the monastery, while a discovery of information from Kracker's stepfather, sculptor Joseph Perdtl (1761) furthers our understanding of his activity in Jászó, still insufficiently documented. Paintings that used to belong to monasteries were identified with the help of the inventories of the dissolved orders, it was even possible to track the subsequent fate of some. New information regarding Kracker's first works in Eger came to light thanks to the letter registries (1764-1765; 1769) of the bishopric, while an exchange of letters between Károly Eszterházy and the Bishop of Nagyvárad, Ádám Patachich, reveals much about the circumstances under which the Belényes (Beiu§) altarpiece was commissioned (1772). The História Domus of the Eger Jesuits has long been a source of information about the destroyed fresco there; those of the Mala Strana house in Prague and another Jesuit convent in Komárom (Komarno) have been lost. The works Kracker made during his stay in Eger in the 1770s (for Tiszapüspöki, Egerbakta, Máriabesnyő, Devecser, the church of the Eger Minorites), on the other hand, are amply documented, from commission proposals through drafts and payment declarations to installation records. There concept of the fresco adorning the library of the Eger Seminary can only be reconstructed from references, while the bishop's detailed programme for the decoration of the parish church in Pápa is available. (With Kracker's death the task was executed by Franz Anton Maulbertsch.) Kracker's will and papers of his estate have not yet been found, just as certain, now hypothetic, details of the beginning of his career also require further research in (foreign) archives. The oeuvre catalogue lists Kracker's works in a strict chronological order, without regard to genres, but also including pieces lost, destroyed or unavailable. Continuously numbered, the list respects the Gesamtkunstwerk quality of groups of frescos and oil paintings, together with the related studies and drafts, while it also relies on the possibility to date works accurately, sometimes to the day. Only those studio works were catalogued which have been mentioned in the literature as Kracker's, though some of these can with certainty be identified as the production of János Zirkler or perhaps Ferenc Huszár, Kracker's assistants in Eger. I also propose that a number of works hitherto attributed to him, because of their quality and connections to Eger, were probably made by others (Johann Georg Dominik Grasmair, Bartolomeo Poli, Gottfried Bernhard Göz, Joseph Ignaz Mildorfer, Franz Sigrist, Ferenc Lieb, Joseph Winterhalter). The degree of dissertation was 'summa cum laude' (2001) and the opponents, Klára Garas and György Rózsa suggested it be published. Two parts were published independently - Összeírás, leltározás... Kracker-képek nyomában a szerzetesrendek II. József-kori feloszlatásának idején (Registration, inventory... In search of Kracker's pictures at the time of the dissolution of religious orders under Joseph II.). In: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Evkönyve (Annales de la Galerie Nationale Hongroise) 1997—2001. Etudes sur l'histoire de l'art en honneur de Katalin Sinkó. Budapest 2002, pp. 69-80; Der Maler Johann Lucas Kracker (1719-1779) im Dienste der Prämonstratense. In: Friedrich Polleroß (Hg.): Reiselust und Kunstgenuss. Barockes Böhmen, Mähren und Österreich. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2004, pp. 187-200. -, and then Enciklopédia Publishing House brought out the volume in Hungarian in 2004, and then in 2005 in German, under the title Johann Lucas Kracker. Ein Maler des Spätbarock in Mitteleuropa.