Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2007)

ANNUAL REPORT - A 2007. ÉV - ORSOLYA RADVÁNYI: Nicolas II Esterházy: The Collections of a Hungarian Prince in Compiegne

the traditional aristocratic taste of the period. The prince was able to introduce an innovation in this endeavour of his as well by opening his collection conceived in a conservative spirit and housed in his Viennese palace to the public. In order to place Nicolas IPs collecting activity among the European collectors of the time in context it is necessary to determine the exact origin of his works of art. However, such research work immediately runs into difficulties since although data relating to the family collection from the end of the 1660s are known, specific items from the inventories of the estate cannot be identified with certainty. The state of the Esterházy Gallery in Nicolas IPs period can be reconstructed the most accurately but little is known of how the particular works had entered the collection; it is suffice to mention the history of The Esterházy Madonna's provenance, wdiich could very well be the stuff of fiction. In fact, one of the knock-on benefits of the exhibition was that it inspired provenance research and thus produced new information in regard to the Esterházy Collection. The works that best represent this artistic collection, built up from the end of the eighteenth century, were selected by the departments of the museum as a collaborative effort. The catalogue was written by an international team of authors, while the staff of the lending institutions, including eighteen experts from the Old Masters' Gallery and the Department of Prints and Drawings, wrote evaluative descriptions of the individual items. The exhibition provided the opportunity for Stéphane Loire to propose a new attribution for a long unidentified painting: his results will be published in the next issue of the Bulletin. Orsolya Rudványi 7 MUSEE NATIONAL DU CHATEAU DE COMPIÈGNE