Fehér György szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1995-1997 (Budapest, 1998)

VÖRÖS ÉVA: Herman Ottó tevékenysége a Magyar Királyi Mezőgazdasági Múzeumban

The activité of Ottó Herman in the Hungarian Royal Museum of Agriculture É. VÖRÖS The outstanding natural scientist Ottó Herman was commissioned in 1901 to gather and arrange material for the exhibition and collection ,,Primeval occupations" in the Hungarian Royal Museum of Agriculture. It appears from documents available in the Archives of the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture and in the Hungarian National Archives that tins task was completed by June of 1907. Ensuring financial basis for the employment of Ottó Herman entailed serious difficulties every year. Similar problems occured around the remuneration of his immediate co-workers assisting in preparing and arranging the exhibition, among them Frigyes Cerva, young painters Elemér Vezényi, Jenő Koszkol and Gyula Matskássy starting their career and sculptor István Halász. The painter-artists made moderate-sized drawings and paintings representing everyday life and work of herdsmen in a milieu tipical of the Great Hungarian Plains. Today these works are parts of the art collection in the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture. István Halász prepared a great number of animal sculptures (sheep, cow, ox, horse, donkey, calf) as well as statuettes portraying horse-herds, cattle-herds, shepherds. Herman's activity concerning primeval occupations dates back to earlier times: he had arranged the exhibiton of fishery, hunting and pastoral life taking place on the pond of the City Park, forming part of the Millenary exhibition in 1896. This activity was continued when he collected and arranged material for the Museum. He kept continuously an inventory of the material collected, several books of inventory survived in the files of Herman's correspondence with curator of the Museum, Ferenc Saárossy-Kapeller. From these books of inventory as well as from the today's records it can be established that several articles of personal use and tools (drinking vessels from wood and horn, salt-holders, fishing bobs, nets, fish-traps etc.) and some maquettes of buildings (huts, windscreens, penfolds) survived devastations of the war. Ottó Herman was already aged and sickly when he was commissioned to perform this great task. Circumstances of his work also were unfavorable since beside the above-mentioned financial difficulties this was the period of reconstructing the museum in its final form. Notwithstanding his age and illness Ottó Herman was able to overcome all these difficulties and complete his work in the Hungarian Royal Museum of Agriculture.