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

Györgyi FAJCSÁK: Exibition of Oriental Arts, 1929 - Collecting Chinese artefacts in Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s

rivalled those offered in smaller shops in Berlin and Munich.

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" As for tendencies of collecting Chinese artefacts, the evolution of the individual collectors' artistic taste was not determined by social status but by contemporary fashion and the circumstances of art trade (that is, stagnation, uncertainty and forgery of European artefacts).

67 Intensive attachment to certain groups of artefacts can be traced back to the collectors' profession and professional interest. A certain group of architects and interior designers (Géza Aladár Kármán, Henrik Herz Sr., Ödön Faragó /Fischer/) were particularly fond of Chinese ceramics; mostly, they collected early and monochrome glazed artefacts. Some excellent pieces of Géza Aladár Kármán's (1871-1939) collection were displayed as early as in 1907, at the exhibition of non-professional collectors in Budapest; however, no Chinese artefact was exhibited then.

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* In 1929 only his Oriental ceramics were displayed.

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" A characteristic group of the 16-piece section of Chinese ceramics consisted of monochrome ceramics produced in the Longquan workshop: green glazed (celadon) plates, bowls, and flower stands decorated with carvings,

70 most of which can be dated back to the Ming period (13681644) and the 18

lh century. Another significant set of ceramics was that of monochrome (cobalt blue, moon light, turquoise blue) ceramics (pairs of vases: vases with lids, hexagonal vases) made in Imperial Porcelain Manufacture at Jingdezhen. Some of them were augmented with a metal mount in Europe (eg. the clock with two fo lions),

71 while others were decorated with gold enamelling. From Henrik Herz's

72 collection, 16 Oriental artefacts were displayed, out of which 13 were Chinese. Most of them were Chinese ceramics: ornamental ridge-tiles with green glaze, depicting phoenixes;

73 offering vessels with deep green glaze, three bowls with pea-green celadon glaze, produced in the Longquan kiln;

74 plates with blue-and-white glaze, a Fujian porcelain statue of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion and a coloured porcelain tea caddy. Further Chinese artefacts were a Ming gilded bronze Budai statue, a cloisonné enamel vessel with two handles, an 18'

h-century carpet

75 and a pair of velvet covers from the 18

lh century. Henrik Henz's collection contained a large number of Chinese ceramics: monochrome and blue-and-white porcelains from the Ming period, that is, those objects that were exported to the Near East in large numbers in the 15

lh

—17

th century. Henrik Herz Sr., who worked as an architect in Cairo for decades, purchased these artefacts in Egypt. When enriching his collection, he paid special attention to Chinese ceramics from the Ming period; most of all, he purchased the pieces (bowls and vases) with pea-green glaze produced in the South Chinese Longquan kiln, but he was also fond of peculiar architectural ceramics. The structure of his collection gives an insight into exported Chinese ceramics (e.g. pieces from the Longquan kiln) which reflected the artistic taste prevalent in the Middle East and came up in Egypt in large numbers even in the 19

,h-20

lh century.

76 Greenglazed Longquan ceramics enjoyed unbroken popularity in Europe since the 16'" century; however, most of them were encased in decorated, gilded frames and occurred as ornamental pieces of the chinoiserie palace interiors. The fact that Longquan artefacts frequently occurred in Hungarian collections (often without ormolus) can be accounted for by a preference for the Middle East and by commercial relations with Turkish territories. Many collectors considered these ceramics, along with the carpets, artefacts produced in the Middle East.

77 Alfréd Perlmutter (1867-1929), a collector in possession of certain Chinese pieces of the exhibition, was remarkable for collecting funeral ceramics. As Antal Géber wrote about him in a manuscript work on Hungarian collectors, "In general, he favoured collecting Chinese works of art; he was the foremost person to collect Oriental artefacts of high artistic value. A green-glazed granary-shaped Han vessel with a lid

78 and a Tang clay horse with a saddle,

79 both belonging to his collection, are the very best among similar funeral artefacts that came to Hungary." Perlmutter's attitude to collecting was normative in two aspects. First, via collecting Chinese carpets he brought a new, less-