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

his beard around his shaved chin is short: His neck is bare, and he threw his pleated cloak over his shoulder. Signed on the back: "Carl Stepnitz H.... 1853," and on the tag above the plinth: "Gr. Forray Iván". Zinc, height: 69 cm. - Inventory no. old 50. and new 52. - in staircase II."

22 This is from where the work arrived to the Museum of Fine Arts, in the abovediscussed way. Having tracked these sources, we can thus ascertain that the bust depicting Iván Forray and donated to the National Museum by the Countess in 1859 is identical with the piece now kept in the Modern Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. The material test performed on this work of art of the Museum also supports the statement above, inasmuch as the sculpture is indeed cast in zinc,

23 as Peregriny correctly stated at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries. In determining the identity of the artist, the surviving inscription is of help. Already in 1943, the heavily worn inscription - as the catalogue entry shows - could hardly be read, but it is discernible with special lighting: "Carl Stepnitz Jahr 1853" -, which is largely the same as Peregriny s version.

24 There is little available information about Karl Stepnitz, a 19

th-century Berlin sculptor.

25 It is even more difficult to explain what prompted Countess Forray to give such a commission to a little-known foreign artist.

26 My presumption is that the artist may have been given the commission through the mediation of Count Tamás Nádasdy, grandson of the Countess. The young Count was studying in Berlin at the time,

27 where he may have become acquainted with the sculptor. Neither can 22 J. Peregriny, A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Képtárának Leíró Katalógusa (A Descriptive Catalogue of the Gallery of Art of the Hungarian National Museum), Budapest 1900, 521-22. 23 The test was performed with the kind collaboration of the restorer Irén Vozil. 24 The identification of the inscription took place with the kind help of Ulrich Luft. 25 "Stepnitz, Carl (Joh. Joachim C), Bildhauer in Berlin, Schüler u. (1842/44) Assistent der dort. Akad." (Thieme and Becker, op.cit. [n. 8], vol. 32, 2.) The most detailed information available about the artist can be obtained from an encyclopaedia of the time: Neues allgemeines Künster-Lexicon oder Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Werken der Maler, Bildhauer, Baumeister, Kupferstecher, Formschneider, Litographen, Zeichner, Medailleure, Elfenbeinarbeiter, etc., ed. G. K. Nagler, vol. 17, Leipzig 1847, 330. "Stepnitz, Carl - Bildhauer zu Berlin, ein jetzt lebender Künster, ist durch verschiedene Werke bekannt. Auf der Kunstausstellung von 1844 sah man von ihm eine Statue der Ariadna, dann ein Portrait und ein gothisches Wappen." For further information, see BioBibliographischer Index, ed. Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, vol. 9, Munich and Leipzig 2000, 459. 26 In 1852, Countess Forray was also in contact with Rudolf Czélkuti-Züllich (Gyulafehérvár/today Alba Iulia, Romania, 1813 - Cairo, 1890), a Hungarian classicist sculptor cf. Magyar Hírlap (28 October 1852). 27 Count Tamás Nádasdy (1837-1856) was a talented young man with a bright future, who studied mainly in Berlin in the 1850s. In L. Szögi, Magyarországi diákok németországi egyetemeken és főiskolákon 1789-1919 (Hungarian Students at German universities and colleges, 1789-1919), Budapest 2001,323. In 1855, he made a tour in Europe with his mentor Pál Gyulai (Kolozsvár/today Cluj-Napoca, Romania 1826 - Budapest 1909) was literary historian, poet, prose writer, university professor, critic, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, one of the leading figures of Hungarian literature in the second half of the 19th century. They spent a year in Berlin and Paris, then went to Munich, where Nádasdy died unexpectedly.