Budapest Régiségei 41. (2007)

MŰEMLÉKVÉDELEM, ADATTÁRAK - VÉGH András: A budavári Nagyboldogasszony-templom középkori kőfaragványainak sorsa közgyűjteményeinkben

THE HISTORY OF THE STONE CARVINGS OF THE BUDA CASTLE OUR LADY'S CHURCH IN OUR PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Tying in with the ongoing reconstruction of Our lady's church in the Buda castle the State Monument Rehabilitation and Restoration Centre commissioned a documentation of the original medieval stone crafts of the premises. Our work was chiefly focussed on condition assessment and drawing up an inventory since most of the foregoing artefacts were dislocated during the major overhaul carried out by Frigyes Schulek. The present paper, which made the introductory chapter of this documentation, is therefore concerned with the history of these stone carvings. A number of hitherto publicly unknown records and photographs have been studied in an effort to follow the path of the stone carvings from the unceremoniously discontinued Halászbástya (Fisherman's Bastion) Lapidarium - where they had originally been stored - to where the carvings are currently stored: the basement store-rooms of the Budapest History Museum and the Lapidarium of the National Museum as well as the „Epreskert". Frigyes Schulek who was in charge of refashioning the building looked to it that the stone carvings be collected and duly preserved in a building he designed specifically for this purpose in the Halászbástya. The former Medieval Lapidarium of the Capital City Museum was organized by Henrik Horváth who was in charge of conserving and showcasing the pieces. However, in 1966, the Lapidarium housing the then nearly hundred year old collection was terminated overnight by the City Council acting on a „Party instruction". Except for a few items that made it to other exhibitions, the medieval stone carvings were relegated to the basement storerooms of the Budapest Museum of History or the courtyard of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts waiting for a favourable turn in their sorry plight.