Vörös Éva: Erdélyi Mór fotográfiái - A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum tárgykatalógusai 3. (Budapest, 2012)

in the fields. Erdélyi is also associated with some of the photographs depicting the Mezőhegyes herd,36 and in particular Ürmény-Nonius II,37 Nonius XXXV11I,38 Gidran XXX,39 and the cattle stock.40 There are also some shots by Erdélyi from the Bábolna stud: cart with a team of four oxen, loading on a two-ox cart, cattle around a sweep-pole well.41

Shots of Vajdahunyad Castle and its exhibitions are also highly valuable. It was probably his interest in urban history that inspired Mór Erdélyi to commemorate the building on several occasions. From the period immediately following its foundation, only one photograph remains that depict contemporary staff.42

The collection contains seven albums, also from the studio of the artist. They include two editions reproduced by print: one entitled A Memento of the Animal Shows at the 1896 Millenary Exhibition. Images of Hungarian Animal Husbandry’.43 The hundred photoprocessed images had been made by the request of Minister Ignác Darányi. The richly bound album contains photos of prize-winning breed animals, with detailed explanations in Hungarian, English, French and German. The specimens in the animal show of the Millenary Exhibition were photographed by Erdélyi with the aid of a vet, who selected the most outstanding animals. He also noted the names and addresses of the owners, and sent them a photo of the animal in question. Almost all the owners were financiers or of the landed aristocracy, and were extremely proud of the animals bred on their estates. They invited Erdélyi to their estates where he was free to make further photos.44

The other album with an animal husbandry theme45 contains nineteen cattle and sheep photos. Six of them were also published in the representative album Magyarország (‘Hungary’).46

The album from the period 1909-1925, containing 35 photos depicting the investments undertaken on the Devecser estate of Count Móric Esterházy and commissioned by the estate staff, is important for the researcher of estate management. The images present, among others, the labourers’ cottages, coach-houses, wine presses and pigsties.

The album containing 25 albumen prints entitled ‘Survey of the Water Regulation Works at the Vaskapu’ was published by the Ministry of Commerce.

The collection acquired in című 1910 an album with a selection of ‘Images from the Early Period of Hungarian Alpine Farming 1909’47, which presents the highland farming of the Máramaros Alps.

It was also the studio of Erdélyi which published, commissioned by the Hungarian Government, the album entitled ‘Seven Rural Memorials Commemorating the Millenium of the Hungarian State’. It contains metal stamps of the seven memorials and an explanatory text in Hungarian and French.48

The most extensive group of photographs with a particularly interesting subject is a so-called photo register issued by Erdélyi’s studio. In 1903 the Uránia Demonstrative Teaching Aid Company, propr. Mór Erdélyi £r Co was founded to 'produce and distribute slides, photographic machines, newly constructed projectors,49 microscopes, objectives and magnifiers’.50 The photo register51 contains over 1,000 items of 6 by 9 cm sized gelatin silver shots, grouped into 23 thematic units, which give an overview of late 19th century Hungarian agriculture: agro-geology and soil science, fertilisation, crop production and marketing, industrial plants, meadow farming and haymaking, medicinal plant collecting, dairy farms, beekeeping, rabbit breeding, forestation, farm implements and machinery, useful birds and their protection, state institutions, cottage industry, labourers’ homes, farm buildings and furnishings. Some of the shots are included in the collection as enlarged photographs.

Outlook: Cooperation of the photographer and the museum as witnessed by their correspondence

Mór Erdélyi had a close working relationship with the Royal Museum of Hungarian Agriculture, attested by their correpondence in the period 1901-1929 that is kept by the Museum Records Collection. Most of the letters deal with payments for his services, price quotations and orders.

36 EF 9603/1-2.

37 EF 10454.

38 EF 10547/3.

39 EF 10547/4.

40 The collection also contains further photographs of horses. As they are unsigned, but mounted on identical cardboard that Erdélyi’s studio used, it can be assumed that these are also his work: 75 Gidran mare (EF 10547/1), 154 North Star mare with Furioso XXIII foal (EF 10548/1), 258 Nonius XXXI Norman mare (EF 10548/2), Algy-Gidran V two-year-old stallion (EF 10584/3).

41 EF 10525-10528.

42 MMgM MD Accession Register 1909-1920/1921. Lot 1910:135.

43 EF 8027.

44 Kincses, MNM TF.

45 EF 10491.

46 Magyarország. Ed. Albert Kain (Budapest: Magyar Kir. Államvasutak Igazgatósága, 1909).

47 EF 9630.

48 Vasárnapi Újság 1898, no. 31: 535.

49 Such a projector is also included in our Model Collection, MM 57.5.1.

50 Melinda Bogdán and Gyula Munkácsy, Vetített képes előadások, http://www.urania-nf.hu/kezdetek/dial.php.

51 EF 10219, see also MMgM MD 934/1907.