Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 24. (Budapest, 2006)

Béla KELÉNYI: Two Trunks from London. Hungarian aspects of the 'discovery' of Nepalese art

influence. But however impressed the artist may have been by Grecian models, he has never departed from the Eastern ideal, or made any attempt to create an Indian Hermes or Apollo."" At the same time, as his book shows, Havell had - somewhat surprisingly - not studied the basic technical literature." As Ervin Baktay has remarked,'

2 Vincent A. Smith, in his book on the history of Indian art published in 1911, dealt with the issue of Tibetan and Nepalese art at some length. Referring to Havell, Smith made mention of Nepalese metalwork, although in his view it did not possess artistic value, unlike Tibetan metalwork.

1- It was several years later that Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, who also suggested that early Nepalese art came quite near to its Indian counterpart,

14 pointed out that most of Nepalese metal statues acquired by Western and Indian museums were mistakenly regarded as Tibetan. Taking into account that numerous artefacts made by Newar masters were to be found in Tibet, this is easy to understand. Coomaraswamy was a strong advocate of the artistic value of these works.

15 Although he made reference only to a small number of examples of Nepalese art, he did mention the catalogue of the collection amassed by Brian H. Hodgson (1800-1894), who was from 1820 until 1833 the British resident in Nepal, and also was in touch with Alexander Csorna de Kőrös, a scholar from Hungary."' Hodgson's collection of twenty-four Tibetan and Nepalese (hangkas, most of which he obtained during his stay in Nepal (1821-1843), passed into the possession of the Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France in Paris in 1866. As M. Alfred Foucher, a renowned Indologist and the compiler of the catalogue of the collection, has said, Hodgson or pandits known to him indicated on the back of the pictures whether a particular thangka came from Nepal ('Nepaliya Thanga'

) or from Tibet ('Bhotiya Thanga').

11 Most probably, they laboured under the abovementioned identification difficulties. Nevertheless, while the first phase in the exploration of Tibetan art had come to an end by the mid-20"

1 century, at that time the art of Nepal was still undiscovered in the West.

18 Because of the significance of the fact that it was Schwaiger who 'discovered' Nepalese art, there have so far been as many as two serious dissertations on the Hopp Museum's small collection of mainly late Nepalese artefacts.

19 Mentioning Havell as the first person to evaluate Nepalese small sculpture,

2

" Baktay made a statement that was quite unequivocal: 'It is especially interesting that Havell had the opportunity to see and study the first large collection of Nepalese metal statues at the beginning of the century in the Calcutta Art Gallery. The collection was assembled and exhibited by Imre Schwaiger (1864-1940) [sic], the Szegedborn international art dealer and collector of Indian art.'

2

' In 1900, Havell founded the Calcutta Art Gallery to contribute to the educational work of the Calcutta School of Art.

22 According to the documents, he assigned the artefacts belonging to the Art Gallery to three main categories: applied art, architecture and architectural ornamentation, and fine arts. Nepalese metalwork was assigned to the first category. Even at the outset, there were Nepalese brass wares - assigned to the applied arts category - among the principal artefacts, and after 1900 more Nepalese artefacts were added.

23 On the other hand, we have no data regarding the important questions of when and from whom Havell acquired the statuettes presented in his book of 1908. Bearing in mind the above data, Baktay's assertion that it was Schwaiger himself who put together and staged the exhibition at the Calcutta Art Gallery in 1908 - the occasion on which the general public had its first opportunity to become acquainted with Nepalese art - is most significant.

24 Taking into account the fact that Havell was not even in India in 1908, the possibility of Schwaiger's involvement in this way is a real one. In his book of 1908, Havell expresses special thanks to Schwaiger for some choice works of art,

25 perhaps a reference to Nepalese artefacts presented to him by Schwaiger. However, it is mainly the artefacts Schwaiger sent to Hungary six years later and the numerous Nepalese statuettes published in Havell's book that lead us to suppose that Havell acquired the