Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 97. (Budapest, 2002)

The Year 2002

themselves - shifted into the focus of interest. Thanks to the efforts of publishers, art dealers and critics, the appreciation of prints also rose among the collectors. Since the exhibits were solely from the collection of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, they obviously reflected the composition and history of the collection as well. The acquisitions in the 1900s aimed at modernizing the comprehensive section of prints and drawings of the Esterházy collection by purchasing contemporary prints. A year or two after their publication, Käthe Kollwitz's, Hans Thoma's and Heinrich Vogeler

's prints were purchased from German and Austrian dealers. Rarities were also acquired, such as Toulouse-Lautrec's colour lithograph the Large lodge in 1901 printed in a mere twelve copies. Some prints by Emil Orlik, a highly popular artist at the turn of the century, came into the collection directly from the artist in 1900, by purchase and donation. The rich collection of Max Liebermann's etchings and drawings is also largely from the artist himself. The museum also kept tabs on foreign artists' successful showings in Budapest: in 1900 it was Walter Crane's, in 1908 Akseli Gallen-Kallela's exhibition that offered a chance for acquiring works. In accord with their place within the collection, the French prints of the 1890s have a distinguished place in the exhibition. The richness of this stock is the outcome of purposive purchases in the 1910s. The sets of lithographs published by Ambroise Vollard in 1899 (Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard, Redon) were bought from the art dealer himself (1912-13). Although in 1913 the collection was enlarged with the second copies of Gau-