Buzási Enikő szerk.: In Europe' Princely Courts, Ádám Mányoki, Actors and venues of a portraitist's career (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2003/1)
Enikő Buzási: ÁDÁM MÁNYOKI (1673-1757) Conclusions from a Monograph
Ádám Mányoki: Portrait of a Berlin painter, 1731 Formerly in Dresden, Grünes Gewölbe portraiture, one source refers to such a work made in Hungary. It reveals that the Mányoki family was still in possession of a Weeping Magdalene in the mid-18 th century, which may presumably be identified with the small Magdalene composition with Hungarian inscription. Its glazed surface is characteristic of Mányoki's miniature technique, while the colours and formal solutions of the natural background shows kinship with the portrait of the Podmaniczky children (cat. no. 74). When Mányoki departed Hungary for good in the spring of 1731, he left an unsuccessful seven years behind him and was faced with the fact that he had been dismissed as court painter in Saxony in 1726. His correspondence with people at home reveals that on his way back he stopped in Berlin for a month. Either then or a little later, he painted a picture whose authorship is questioned by the literature on Dresden, despite the signature by Mányoki. 25 The painting signed "A. de Mányoki Nobil. Hung. Pinxit Berolini 1731," the whereabouts of which have been unknown since World War II went from Berlin to the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden in the late 19 lh century as the portrait of goldsmith Johann Melchior Dinglinger. What presents a problem for researchers is the signature, as Dinglinger was not in Berlin in that year, and, what is more, he died in Dresden in March 1731. This problem can apparently be settled by correctly identifying the model, since authentic portraits of the goldsmith known from engravings (by Mányoki, Kupezky and Pesne) show a differently modelled face. The signature accurately reflects Mányoki's status at the time. In this single instance he laid claim to his Hungarian nobility self-consciously, maybe because he lacked court status, and had no other rank at that time. It must therefore be accepted that the portrait does not show Dinglinger, and the sitter who holds a drawing instrument with graphite and lead in his hand must be sought among the painters and engravers in Berlin. On his return to Dresden, Mányoki was faced with a changed situation, since the role and task of the court artist had been changing. The period starting with the accession of Augustus III in 1733 was dominated by the development and reorganisation of the royal Gallery and the royal collections. Instead of the traditional court art, including earlier high priority portraiture, the interest of Augustus III shifted to art collection in increasingly institutionalised forms and frames, and to collection organisation from a museum point of view. The leading court painters - to which Mányoki belonged until his departure in 1724 - had also to function as Malerei Inspector, implying practical supervision of collection and conservation matters. 2 '' A wider spectrum of skills were now required to fulfil the tasks of court painter. All this may have contributed to the fact that after his return to Dresden it took many years of applications for Mányoki to regain his court painter status in 1736, but this no longer entailed important commissions from the court. His representative portraits painted in the meantime - such as the threequarter figure portraits of Jan Kanty Moszynski and his wife, young Countess Cosel, painted in 1733 - belong to the works ordered by the court aristocracy and comply as such with the still compulsory traditions and style of court portraiture (cat. nos. 82, 83). His only official work surviving from 1737/38 - the portrait of Saxon princess Maria Amalia Christine, queen of Sicily, which is a close kin to the portrait of countess Cosel - is registered as one of the most important works of his late year (cat. no. 84). Development and modernisation in his painting is therefore to be looked for in the manner of painting and the subject matter of pieces that complied with the demand of a new stratum of clientele. Interest in pictures painted in the style and on the themes of 17 thcentury Dutch masters was growing among middle-class and aristocratic collectors in the 1740s, who assumed now a considerable role in moulding taste. This historicising taste, affecting both painting techniques and subject, brought Mányoki back "into fashion," since he preserved many of the technical feats learned from the work of Dutch masters at the beginning of his career. When he began to work in the "Dutch manner" in the early 1740s, he did not merely revive these experiences but also realised his pictures in the highly popular portrait historisé type, a close kin to historicist genre painting. One such attempt was the now missing
