Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 14. (Budapest, 1994)

FERENCZY Mária: Hetvenöt éves a budapesti Hopp Ferenc Kelet-Ázsiai Művészeti Múzeum

MÁRIA FERENCZY SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF THE FERENC HOPP MUSEUM OF EASTERN ASIATIC ARTS, BUDAPEST It happened seventy-five years ago that Ferenc Hopp, a wealthy citizen of Budapest, bequeathed his villa, together with garden and a collection of objets d'art, to the Hungarian state in his will, in the conviction - as written in his testament - that ,,the objets d'art of East Asian (Chinese, Japanese and Indian) provenance, i. e. the greater part of the collection is appropriate to serve as a basis for a museum of Eastern Asiatic arts, and is to be made accessible to the general public, with the aim of promoting cultural education".

1 The history of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts, still in existence and bearing the name of its founder, began in 1919 with this noble gesture. While commemorating this event, the present paper endeavours to determine the place of the museum within the context of Hungarian cultural history, past and present, in order to assess its work. The founder, Ferenc Hopp (b. April 28th 1833 - d. Sept. 7th 1919) had an extraordinary life, and was one of the representative figures of Hungarian modern development. His talents and his industry, together with his fairness in business activities, resulted in a career comparable to those of folk-tale heroes: from a young apprentice without means he became the owner of the firm Calderoni and Co.; it was he who started to manufacture equipment for schools in Hungary (after the Compromise between the Hungarian nation and its ruler, the Habsburg emperor and king Francis Joseph, in 1867, at the time of the educational reforms instituted by József Eöh'ös).

2 The wealth earned through this activity after a couple of decades made it possible for him to undertake travels, to collect objets d'art and to offer generous material support to a number of branches of culture.

3 He was interested in natural sciences, and in geography: between 1882 and 1914 he made five tours around the world, visiting Japan and China several times, as well as Southeastern Asia.

4 Firts he bought souvenirs only. His interest, howerer, turned gradually towards Oriental art, and he began to collect objets d'art systematically. Later on he availed himself of the expertise of an art historian to make his collection more complete. At the end of his life this collection numbered more than four thousand pieces, concentrated mainly on certain crafts (carvings in semi-precious stones, ivory, wood, lacquer, cloisonné, bronze decorative and other articles, etc.).

5 Even at the outset, Ferenc Hopp intended his collection to become public property. In 1919, however, his patronage of the cause of culture reaching its culmination, he decided to keep the collection together, to set up a museum as described in his last will and testament cited above. This decision was due mainly to the art historian he employed, Zoltán Felvinczi Takács ( 1880-1964). Zoltán Takács began his career in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. Later he became the first director of the Ferenc Hopp Museum. Under the supervision and with the aid of the Museum of Fine Arts,

6 the collection was organized and developed into a museum in