Veszter Gábor: Villas in Budapest. From the compromise of 1867 to the beginning of World War II - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1997)

covered by richly and colourfully ornamented panelling made of noble material, but this feature appears derisory compared to the built-in works of art. The lady’s bedroom on the first floor was decorated with panel paintings by István Csók, the study was augmented by others painted by Béla Iványi Grünwald, the drawing room contained work by József Rippl-Rónai, while the hall was decorated by Károly Kernstok. Rippl-Rónai and Kernstok created works related to the building from a thematic point of view; the former depicted the owner’s wife with her daughters in the park of a manor, while the latter portrayed Miksa Schiffer himself surrounded by his colleagues, with a bridge in the background. The two pictures represent the domestic middle-class ideal; the creative husband, providing for his family by his productive activity. The theme of the stained-glass hall window and of the well standing in its middle is not as trite. Kernstok created an Arcadian representation of timeless existence on the window and the two kneeling figures of Vilmos Fémes Beck’s well are attuned to it from both a spiritual and a formal point of view.

Miksa Schiffers brother-in-law, the equally wealthy and cultivated entrepreneur Mór Grünwald, also commissioned József Vágó to build his villa (Ostrom utca 1, 1914-17). Grünwald was even more liberal than Schiffer

Károly Kernstok’s stained glass window in the hall of the villa - the lower strip shows a detail of his cartoon. The window in place today is a reconstruction.

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