Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 5. (Budapest, 1962)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Major, Gyula: Memorial Exhibition of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts: The Art of Asia

THE ART OF CHINA The art of China is shown in the standing exhibition of the China Museum in its historical development. Only a smaller part of the exhibited material belongs to the Ferenc Hopp Museum. The Chinese archaeological material of the Shang-, Chou- and Han-periods is the result mainly of the activity of Dr. Zoltán Felvinczi Takáts, the first director of the Museum collecting the objects partly by purchases or exchanges, partly by gifts. Takáts was allotted only a minimum of official support. He depended mostly on highspirited amateurs, partly on personal friends. In Ferenc Hopp's collection he found a Sung-piece at the best. At present we are rich in very important pieces of Chinese antiquity and the first grand ages of its history. The permanent "China exhibition" contains already many objects acquired after the war. One of this rooms is dedicated completely to the art of the New China. Its material is selected from the first great gift of the Chinese People's Republic. As to numerical value the multiplication of the Chinese material of the Ferenc Hopp Museum (1245—8200) equals the increase in the extent of the Japanese collection, but it highly surmounts the latter as to its artistic and archaeological value. We succeeded in purchasing exceedingly precious prominent works of art and this multiplication was promoted by addition of rich private collections as well. The collection was considerably increased by one large-scale and several smaller gifts of the Chinese People's Republic. By them the museum received one half of the first representative exhibition of industrial art of the Chinese People's Republic (the other half was given Czechoslovakia). The exhibition has been shown in Moscow, Berlin, Prague and Budapest at the fifth anniversary of the Chinese People's Republic. This material alone meant an augmentation of 700 works of art. In 1960, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Hungarian People's Republic, the Chinese People's Republic allotted to the Hungarian people a collection embracing the whole area of Chinese industrial art ; after the exhibition this became a property of our museum. This collection contains also nearly 600 works of art. Besides these splendid gifts the material of smaller graphical exhibitions, collections of musical instruments etc. were also presented to the museum by the Chinese Republic. The permanent exhibition of Chinese Art enabled us to show such parts of Chinese material in our memorial exhibition which were but scarcely represented at the permanent one, or lacking entirely. Thus we have exhibited a collection of mandarin's distinctions of the eighteenth or nineteenth century, a series of very rich and precious silk-brocade book-bindings of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, a splendid collection of jades, semi-precious stonecarvings etc. The carved lacquer collection, painted in red, black and other colours, formed a separate part. Together with old Chinese furniture those made in modern fashion, besides the old Chinese wood-carvings the modern ones were shown to the public too. Besides the Ming and Ch'ing silk-brocades the modern ones, imitating the old works with accuracy, found a place in the show-cases. For the rest the art of China, including the art of modern China, has been shown in an area equal to our Japanese exhibition. In this framework the art of Old China occupied the same area as that of the People's Republic.