Gosztonyi Ferenc - Király Erzsébet - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2002-2004. 24/9 (MNG Budapest, 2005)

NEW ACQUISITIONS - Unknown sculptor: Palatine Joseph, c. 1847 (Antal Tóth)

UNKNOWN SCULPTOR: PALATINE JOSEPH, C. 1847 BY ANTAL TÓTH Putting it simply, we could say: 'It is Palatine Joseph's house we live in', to express the fact that the Hungarian National Gallery has been housed in the former royal palace of Buda for the past thirty years. The various traces and details of its buildings have preserved the formerly baroque style of the palace, in which Palatine Joseph (1776-1847), the head of the Hungarian branch of the Habsburg family, 'the most Hungarian of Habsburgs', lived first as a governor, then as the palatine of Hungary from 1796. One of the prides of the palace was István Ferenczy's Little Shepherdess, which stood in a focal position of the portico for over twenty years as of 1822. The story is well known. The sculptor in Rome had Unknown sculptor: Palatine Joseph, c. 1847 White marble, 69 cm, unsigned Inv.: 2001.3-N Purchased in 2001 sent his emblematic statue together with his bust of the poet Mihály Csokonai Vitéz straight to his patron, Palatine Joseph, in Buda. The 'shipment' for the nation, which was later to be on display at the National Museum, was first given partial publicity in the palatine's palace. It was a long-felt wish of the Sculpture Department of the Hungarian National Gallery to possess a statue of Palatine Joseph, who excelled himself in developing and modernising the Hungarian capital. As it so often happens, the wish was fulfilled by chance. The director of Ernst Gallery in Budapest called my attention to a marble bust in which I recognized the characteristic features of Palatine Joseph. Thanks to the generosity of the Ernst Gallery, the purchase came through well; evidently, they themselves had thought the place of the sculpture was in a public collection. The sculptor, however, has not yet been identified. Incidentally, he might have been István Ferenczy himself. Who else could it have been if it were a Hungarian sculptor? The quality of the work betrays no better hand, no greater genius. Ferenczy would have had every reason to portray the palatine. Did he not do so? Was it only left unmentioned? A puzzle it is - perhaps mere speculation by a scholar. The type of the representation can be traced back to the painter Anton Einsle, who was a court painter in Buda for a decade from 1830. Einsle portrayed Palatine Joseph in plain clothes, wearing a thick coat and a bow-tie. On the basis of the painting, Antal Stadler produced a lithograph, which popularized the palatine without the signs and decorations of his dignity in many copies. Knowing the prototype, it can be surmised that the statue was made in the 1840s, possibly after the death of the palatine, when tenders were invited for a public-place statue. The plan was rendered untimely by the 1849-49 Revolution and War of Independence; it was in 1869 that a full-scale bronze statue by Johann Halbig was to commemorate him in Budapest. Now, the bust was placed in the space of the permanent 19th-century exhibition where a couple of baroque columns recall the old palace of the era of Maria Theresia, and where the Little Shepherdess is displayed, too. The palatine can now 'look at and delight in' the sculpture the making of which he had considerably contributed to.