Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
FERENCZY Mária: Stein Aurél és Hopp Ferenc
that another one is proving good. However, this episode is seen in a new light if we observe that the letter was written in 1891 in Lahore and mailed to Budapest, and if we know who the young scholar and the optician were. The writer, Marc Aurel Stein, by that time director of the Oriental College of the Punjab University at Lahore, was born at Budapest. He finished secondary school there, after having earlier spent a couple of years at a school in Dresden. Afterwards, he took a doctor's degree in Iranian Studies at the University of Tübingen. He then pursued his studies at Cambridge, Oxford and London on a scholarship obtained from the Hungarian state. There was an interruption for a year while he did his military service at home (he studied cartography at the Ludovika military academy in Budapest). His diligence and his talents were recognized by his professors in London: he received recommendations for his trip to India, and thus obtained in 1887 the directorship mentioned above 3 . Besides teaching he undertook intensive research work, as seen from his papers published in those years 4 . During vacations he travelled extensively: he first visited Kashmir between August and October 1889, 5 collecting a wealth of material for future studies 6 . It was in these years that he learned how to take photographs 7 . Stein is known never to have missed an opportunity to maintain contact with colleagues and friends, even during his long expeditions: he answered every letter and — besides making short visits to Hungary — he maintained his links with his homeland through the medium of correspondence. We learn from the correspondence between his elder brother, Ernest Stein, and his uncle, Ignatius Hirschler, professor of ophthalmology, that Stein visited Hungary in September 1890. 8 He then happened to meet Ferenc Hopp, the eventual recipient of the letter. Hopp was no stranger to the Stein family: this wealthy and respected optician, co-owner of the firm Calderoni and Co. (the enterprise manufactured optical instruments and other equipment for schools) was a contemporary and a friend of Stein's father. In a later letter, Stein refers to Hopp as „my old and noble friend 9 ". In another letter, addressed to Zoltán Felvinczi Takács, Stein, touching on a writing by the addressee on Ferenc Hopp, recalls him in the following words: „This makes the memory of a man with a character hundred per cent gold even more endearing. I had the honour to know him as an intimate friend of my late father, one with whom I certainly had contacts less frequent than I desired while studying and working at places far away from him." 10 Ferenc Hopp (1833-1919), who was born in Moravia, came to Budapest as an optician's apprentice. He learned his trade at the Calderoni firm, which already enjoyed a high reputation. Being talented and industrious, he became the joint owner of the firm in the 1860s. After the Compromise of 1867 between the Hungarian nation and the Habsburg ruler Francis Joseph, the Hungarian capital experienced rapid development and finn Calderoni and Co. became a large enterprise. At the time of the education reforms of the years 1868—70 (these were introduced by Baron József Eötvös), the company began to manufacture school equipment for the first time in Hungary and eventually obtained a monopoly in the supplying of Hungarian schools with up-to-date visual aids and optical instruments. 11 The wealth he earned through this activity was used by Hopp to undertake extensive travels: he travelled round the
