Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 28. (Budapest, 2012)

Ildikó PANDUR: Links between the Oeuvres of Ödön Lechner and Gyula Jungfer

5. Construction design by Ödön Lechner of the iron showcase for graphics, made for the National Picture Gallery, 1892 (MAA Archive

) Károly Pulszky was appointed director of the National Picture Gallery in 1884. In the same year the Historical Picture Gallery including some five hundred paintings, prints and sculptures, the bulk from the collection of the Hungarian National Museum, was established, also under the directorship of Pulszky. This collection was first housed in the Castle Garden Basaar, from where shortage of space and dampness urged its transfer in 1894 to the former art pavilion of the national exhibition of 1885 and partly to the former royal pavilion.

13 (The glass apertures of the royal pavilion boarded up for protection since 1885 needed protective grates, so Pulszky asked Gyula Jungfer, who made a plan and cast calculations for iron lattices after detailed consultations in order to protect the collection to be housed there.)

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4 The exhibition opened on 23 May 1894 was curated by Károly Pulszky and János Peregriny. The elaborate grates were completed in time.

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5 It can be presumed that Lechner's wrought iron showcases having been ordered by Pulszky, the director of both the National Picture Gallery and the Historical Picture Gallery, these pieces manufactured by Jungfer were also used for the latter exhibition. This assumption appears to be supported by Gyula Jungfer's remark about "110 iron tables of the historical picture gallery" in a letter of 16 March (7 April) 1907 written to the that-time director of the two institutions, Dr Ernő Kammerer.

16 However, it contradicts this hypothesis that Jungfer was to deliver the first 50 pieces by 20 June 1894, later than the opening of 96