Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)

NEW ACQUISITIONS, NEW RESULTS - Gizella SZATMÁRI: Frigyes Podmaniczky's 1877 Bust

GIZELLA SZATMÁRI Frigyes Podmaniczky's 1877 Bust UNKNOWN SCULPTOR: BUST OF FRIGYES PODMANICZKY, 1877 (111. 1) Bronze, 80 cm Unsigned Inv. no.: 91.7-N The sculpture was bequeathed to the National Gallery by the branch of the family living in the United States, namely: Charles B. Podmaniczky (the great grandson of Ármin, the brother of Frigyes). The parents of the bequeather, Tibor Podmanicky and his wife, had sold off their estate in Aszód at the beginning of 1920s, and moved abroad. After living in Munich for a while, they settled down in the States. Regarding it as a family relic, they always carried the bust along with them. To our repeated queries, they could not answer as to who its sculptor had been, nor could, for that matter, members of the family remaining in Hungary.

1 The bust portrays the "Bridegroom of Budapest", who dedicated his whole life to "the service of the nation and public concerns", wearing Hungarian braided and laced attire. Baron Frigyes Podmaniczky (1824-1907) was raised to be a Hungarian by his Dresden Saxon mother, Erzsébet Nostitz. Ranked as a captain, he served with the Károlyi Hussars during the 1848^49 Revolution and War of Independence until the surrender at Világos; as a punishment, he was degraded and had to serve as a private carter in the Austrian Army. Having returned home, he first immersed himself in belletristic activity, and was elected to be a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Later he entered parliamentary politics, became the president of the Liberal Party, and, more importantly from our point of view, he was the vicechairman of the Budapest Committee on Public Works between 1873 and 1905, and the superintendent of the National Theatre between 1875 and 1886, then that of the Opera House. In 1869, he joined the newly established Hungarian Army, and acquired the necessary uniforms and equipment. In 1875, he was raised to the rank of brevet major. He was particularly fond of wearing his uniform. (The papers could hardly conceal their surprise to see him wear his uniform when he welcomed King Franz Joseph for the opening ceremony of the Opera House in 1884). He was elected to be the president of the National Defence Association, and served on its board till the end of his life. It was probably thanks to him that, as early as 1877, a modest monument was erected to commemorate those that fell when capturing the castle of Buda from the Austrians in 1849 "until a major battle monument will be erected by support from enthusiastic citizens." (The "major battle monument", the work of György Zala, was unveiled in 1893.) The inscription on the plinth of the bust reads: "SCHLICK FOUNDRY, BUDAPEST, 1877." Ignác Schlick (1821-1869) established his iron and metal foundry in Buda in 1843. In the following year, the firm moved across to Ferencváros in Pest, opening a shop in Két Nyúl utca (today: Lónyay utca), then Váci körút (today: Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út), and finally, in 1884, at 45^47 Váci út. In 1861, Schlick's cast of the small-scale bust of István Széchenyi designed by Károly Szandház became highly popular. His factory produced mostly iron castings for "construction and other purposes", but an advertisement in the construction magazine Építő Ipar (February 11, 1877) stated: "We offer to architect gentlemen and the building public at large our zinc and bronze ware, particularly decorations, sculptures in zinc or bronze cast." By this time fundraising for the Petőfi statue had already come to a head (florins 140,000 had been collected), and the company thus invested in more up-to-date foundry equipment so as to tender for the large-scale casting job in 1881. (Though this project was delayed till much later and finally lost to the Schlick Foundry, it did cast the statue of the Genius for the top of the Deák Mausoleum.) But who actually made the rather fine bust of Podmaniczky, which arguably resembles his features very well and is rich in detail? No signature or initials are to be found on the sculpture at all. The literature on the period lists a number of possible artists working in the period in whose oeuvre the bust would fit in well; we, however, cannot accept any of these suggestions. Gyula Pasteiner took it for granted that Leó Fessier had been the sculptor. With regard to György Kiss's Genius on the Deák Mausoleum, he wrote that "this was the first statue to be cast in Hungary", so at last there was no need to hire foreign, Vienna or Paris workshops for such jobs, and went on to say: "The first successful experiment at the Schlick Foundry would not remain without a following. Upon private commissions, it cast several smaller statues, such as, apart from the bust of Bishop Mihály Horváth [...], those of Baron Frigyes Podmaniczky by Fessier, of the architect Miklós Ybl by Sommer, a grieving angel for the Gerster tomb by Adolf Huszár, the Lika tomb statue by Sommer."

2 Unfortunately, no evidence in the literary estate of Gyula Pasteiner survived from which the sources of these data could be