Király Erzsébet - Jávor Anna szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 1997-2001, Művészettörténeti tanulmányok Sinkó Katalin köszöntésére (MNG Budapest, 2002)

TANULMÁNYOK / STUDIES - SZABÓ László: Egy budapesti műgyűjtemény. A Révai család Ferenczy-képeiről

- mintha az ő is érzékelné a képpel kapcsolatos mellőzést, nemcsak a festő, hanem a kritika részéről is. Réti: i. m. (18. j.) 155, 168. Genthon István is az olasz reneszánsz hatását érzi a festményben. Saját szavaival: „A kép nem messze esik azoktól a társaitól, melyeket akadémikus festők alkottak a múlt század végén, az itáliai piktúra dicső korszakának hatása alatt." Genthon: i. m. (5. j.) 32. Sinkó Katalin Puvis de Chavannes felfogásához közel állónak írja le a müvet. Sinkó Katalin: Az alapítók biblikus képei és a századvég antihistorizmusa, in: Nagybánya művészete, i. m. (4. j.) 216-237. A Királyok hódolása c. képről lásd 224. LÁSZLÓ SZABÓ A Private Collection in Budapest ON KÁROLY FERENCZY'S PAINTINGS IN THE RÉVAI FAMILY Sometimes picture have their own fate, and so have art collections. The attribution of Károly Ferenczy's so-far unknown painting is possible on the basis of surviving data that enable us to reconstruct a one-time collection in Budapest. The government commission of Jewish property inventoried the art works in the possession of the widow of Mór János Révai in 1944. Mór János Révai (1860-1926) was the greatest book publisher and distributor in the late 19th century. He worked in his father Sámuel Révai's business in Pest from 1880 and launched a publishing house. With his brother Ödön he founded the Révai Brothers Literary Institute Co. in 1895. Révai took a great share in publishing and distributing the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy in Words and Pictures and he published as his major undertaking the Révai Great Encyclopaedia. His books were illustrated by outstanding painters and graphic artists of the age. Several pieces of information survive about the relationship of Mór Révai and Károly Ferenczy. First of all, the illustrations of the de luxe edition of József Kiss' poems, a cherished venture of the Révai brothers, were made by Nagybánya painters including Károly Ferenczy. Though it was Ödön who fostered the contact with the artists, it proves his brother's acquaintance with Ferenczy that the latter painted the Portrait of Révai 's Wife in 1897. Irén Györgyei, Mór Révai's wife had literary ambitions: she published some books under the pennámé Mária Andor. Révai's collection included Ferenczy's painting Church of 1903. The surviving commission documents reveal that 22 works were sequestered from Révai's widow: 11 by Rippl-Rónai, 2 by István Csók, 2 by László Mednyánszky, 1 by Aladár Edvi Illés, 1 by Ferenc Olgyay and 5 by Károly Ferenczy. Apart from the mentioned two Ferenczy works known to researchers, the other three are puzzling. The titles in the inventory are Two Angels, Adoration of Jesus and Negro for the Adoration Scene. The three latter works are not mentioned in research literature, but there is a Károly Ferenczy picture painted in Munich in 1895 with the title Adoration of the Magi on display in the Ferenczy Museum in Szentendre as a deposit by the National Gallery. The adoration of the magi and the adoration of Jesus are iconographically identical themes. The three Ferenczy pictures once in the Révai collection must have been part of a single composition originally. In the knowledge of the work in Szentendre, Two Angels corresponds to the two angel figures seated on the left of the picture in front of the columns, while the Negro for the Adoration shows the king worshipping Jesus in the foreground, in front of Mary. The third, Adoration of Jesus, probably coincides with the centre of the composition showing the Virgin. At any rate, iconographically the three Ferenczy pictures in the Révai collection are identical. From these, Two Angels has been known to specialists and the public for some time, without, however, its provenance and attribution having been clarified. On the basis of this picture it can be presumed that the original painting was cut into three by the painter himself, as other examples in the Ferenczy oeuvre suggests. The three pieces must have been given to Mór János Révai by Ferenczy himself in 1897. The resemblance of Two Angels to the Adoration picture in Szentendre supports the presumption that Ferenczy painted two similar or almost identical compositions, which he was wont to do, as proven by many paintings in his oeuvre.