Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 46-47. (Budapest, 1968)
KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK - ELŐADÁSOK - Antall József: Semmelweis korabeli arcképei (Angol nyelven)
THE CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS OF IGNÁC SEMMELWEIS by JÓZSEF ANTALL (Budapest) T hose interested in Semmelweis's personality has long considered it important to recall his features, to collect all the contemporary portrayals snowing him as he really looked like. Fortunately most of his biographers illustrated their works with one or other of the available pictures. So now we can collect the portraits and photos made in his lifetime which Substituted for the living model in all subsequently made Semmelweis presentations as well. Painters, graphic artists, sculptors, plaquette-designers all go back to these pictures when they reproduce his features. The first to examine Semmelweis's portraits—and his manuscripts as well— was György Korbuly [1]. All but one appeared in his book, though not all on the basis of the original ones. But even the one he left out was only a simultaneously produced variation of a picture presented by him. I. A picture of Ignác Semmelweis in his childhood painted about 1830 by Lénárt Landau (1790-1808), a painter in Pest. The oil-painting shows the child holding a Latin grammar-book in his hands. It was printed by the Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday News) in 1894, which added that it was on display as well. In spite of the clearly legible signature, Korbuly regarded it as the work of an unknown master, and did not even consider it authentic for lack of evidence [2]. His stand was not justified as according to his bibliographical data he knew the publication of the Vasárnapi Újság [3], and that it was exhibited at the Semmelweis celebrations in 1894, at which it was seen not only by the wife of Ignác Semmelweis, Mária Waidenhofer but his sister Mrs. Rath née Julia Semmelweis, too. So they could have contested the authenticity of the picture, what they did not do. Finally we may note that the comparison both with the picture taken in 1858 and his mother's (Terézia Müller's) portrait backs the authenticity as well as András Sós's reconstructive efforts with a replica of the exhumed skull. The canvas is owned by the Budapest Historical Museum, but can be seen in the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum on loan [4]. Its size is: 62x49 cms. II. The best known portrait of Ignác Semmelweis is an aquarelle by Ágost Canzi (1808-1866) which shows him in the year of his marriage (1857). The picture of his fiancée, Mária Waidenhofer was made at the same time. Both
