Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 100. (Budapest, 2004)
URBACH, ZSUZSA: Ein flämischer ikonographischer Bildtypus im italienischen Quattrocento. Bemerkungen zur Studie von Éva Eszláry
the Counts death (fig. 49). Countess Forray distributed the journal - which was a specialty at the time and became widely known 12 - as a present to every prominent person and organisation, including the Austrian Emperor 13 and the Museum of Transylvania. 14 The publication of the journal was just one of the many activities "engendered in grief" by which the affectionate mother, building on her connections as a patron of art as well, ensured a funeral cult for his son. For Iván, Countess Forray had to organise, first of all, the preparation of a tomb with an artistic conception and execution. Although this cenotaph, originally placed in the church of Soborsin, has been declared lost, 15 we can obtain a view of its conception and execution on the basis of the woodcut illustration that first appeared in the aforementioned traveller's journal, at the end of the biography of the Count (fig. 50). The significance of this tomb in the history of art comes from the fact that it was created by István Ferenczy, the Hungarian sculptor (Rimaszombat/today Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia, 1792 - Rimaszombat, 1856), who, during the last years of his life which he spent in Rimaszombat, commenced work on the commission, but death prevented him from fully executing it. 16 Ferenczy, having returned from Italy, received important commissions from the family from quite early on in his carrier (eg. the Brunszvik tomb in Alsókorompa), and we have good reason to assume, on the basis of the following sources, that due to his good relations with the family, he may have been working also on the portrait of Iván Forray besides his tomb. As it turns out from Ferenczy s correspondence in 1853-54, he was commissioned by Countess Forray to make the tomb, 17 the plaster 12 See for example: Aradi Híradó (23 January 1859), 3., (16 Oktober 1859), 3; Családi Lapok (2 January 1859), 21-22; Divatcsarnok, no. 3 (1859), 22; Kolozsvári Közlöny (18 May 1859), 184. 13 The local press was especially enthusiastic about this finely bound volume: "The book is of enormous size and is bound in red saffian leather. The corner fittings of the book are plated with gold. The covers are adorned in the middle with coloured reliefs, the uppermost one of which depicts the deceased Count, the middle one a drawing from the book, and the lowest the family's coat of arms. The rich gilding highlights the blue and the red of the carvings and of the letters in a beautiful manner. With no such richness, but with tasteful simplicity and with similar reliefs were those copies made that have a dark red binding and are intended for sale. The embossed figures, the corner fittings, and the reliefs are the same, save that they are not plated with gold. This journal is in every way so gorgeously and richly made that it is hard to find its equal in Hungarian, or indeed, foreign literature. The quality of the printing is splendid, the pictures beauteous, the paper as thick as leather, and Her Excellence the Countess could have hardly raised a nicer monument in the memory of her son, which would have at the same time done such honour to Hungarian literature." (Divatcsarnok, no. 3 [1859], 215.) 14 Cf. Aradi Híradó (29 May 1859). 15 Its whereabouts were still known in 1942, at the centenary of Forray's journey. Cf. Magyar Nemzet (6 December 1942). 16 The woodcut of the tomb was also published in S. Melier, Ferenczy István élete és művei (The Life and Works of István Ferenczy), Budapest 1906, 356. 17 "... within a few days, Countess Forray arrived, with whom I indeed contracted in the value of three or 400 silver florins for a small memorial for her son possibly made of klenovec - or simple quarried stone." in Ferenczy István levelei (The Letters of István Ferenczy), ed. D. Wallentinyi, Rimaszombat 1912, 443-44 (to József Ferenczy, Pest, 22 July 1853).
