Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)

STUDIES - Zsuzsa FARKAS: Reproductions in a Sculptor's Estate from the 1870s: Anna Christ's Photographs of Ferenc Kugler's Statues

4. Anna Christ: The Photographer's Studio (detail), c. 1870. HNG After studies at the Vienna Academy and in Rome, Kugler settled down in Budapest in 1865, and died there in 1875. Hungarian critical reception was all but indulgent to the young master, his works being continually pitted against the works of the virtuoso Miklós Izsó. According to certain family records, he committed suicide because of the scathing criticism he had received.

4 The Kugler papers in the Archive of the National Gallery include 24 written documents, among them: his birth certificate, family papers, invitations, mourning cards, invoices, his award of citizenship, his royal appointment, his will, and his marriage contract. Many papers of the Sopron Kugler family are extant, from family documents in Latin to the appointment of Heinrich Kugler as an Imperial and Royal Court Confectioner. The Archive also preserves a small-scale portrait of Ferenc Kugler by an unknown artist.

5 (111. 1) The documents on the Kugler family provide no information on the life of the sculptor, but the family picture by the Pest photographer János Tiedge is a genuine rarity. (111. 2) Taken in 1858, all eight sons line up behind their mother and father and their only sister Mária.

6 The representative photo was regarded as embodying a middle-class ideal, and so was reproduced.

7 The 11 photographs attached to the papers are of personal nature. Among them are an oval portrait of Ferenc Kugler,

8 a finely finished version of which is also in the photo collection of the Hungarian National Museum.

9 There is also a group photo of twenty young men taken outdoors, which is probably related to Kugler's Academy years in Vienna.

10 He also had a shot made of himself in the company of six young men at a photographer's studio.

11 The reproduction of his grandmother's, Barbara Kugler's (née Leinberger) relief portrait is a masterpiece of Ferenc Kozmata's Kristóf-tér studio in the heart of Pest.

12 The photographic teacher Károly Koller made the relief portrait of Kugler's parents in his Harmincad-utca studio. The representative studio of Lipót Strelisky in Dorottya utca took the picture of the cake counter design for Henrik Kugler's confectionery, in the middle of which stood a statue of Hungária Ferenc Kugler made of icing sugar. The other half of the estate of Ferenc Kugler went to the SculpUire Department of the National Gallery. Actually, this is the material that includes significant data with regard to photographic history. The sculptor Ferenc Kugler and the photographer Anna Christ lived and worked in the same place, a lonely quarter of the Beleznay Gardens; the photos that have come down from them attest their good relationship. It is worth outlining the history of this interesting locality. From the 18

th century, the Grassalkovich and then the Beleznay families owned a palace and the surrounding gardens here; within the gardens there was another smaller mansion at the corner of what is today Rákóczi út and Puskin utca. Beyond the Hatvan Gate (Hotel Astoria today), it was outside the borders of Pest. The Beleznay family having died out, the park was made into a royal free city excursion site, fully open to the public. Separated from the university Botanical Gardens by a wall, several makeshift stalls and booths were put up to provide entertainment.

13 Between 1853 and 1865, there seem to have always been some temporary buildings, circuses, riding halls, etc. there, but these were pulled down for good when the park was laid out.

14 The Beleznay Gardens (on Kerepesi út, now Rákóczi út) were altered several times, when, in 1867, the park itself was turned into a dining and entertainment hall. The so-called little rococo mansion in the park housed various theatrical and operatic companies. Instead of the temporary club, Gábor Parragh hired Károly Hild to build an imposing pavilion in the front section of the park in 1870. Several descriptions of the restaurant and the vibrant life of the area (a scene of political rallies and meetings) have come down to us.

15 Without the city walls, in these lively grounds of "country" life, two modest art studios were also built, which were accessible from Ötpacsirta utca (today Puskin utca) and through the inner yard of the Beleznay mansion. In 1867, Jakab Christ requested permission from the Pest Building Committee to build a photographic studio. The studio was built according to Antal Gottgeb's plans on the corner of Kerepesi út and Ötpacsirta utca.

16 On the basis of the inscriptions on the backs of photographs, we know that, between 1868 and 1870, Anna Christ ran the studio together with János Fájth (the former partner of the painter Miklós Barabás, who had experimented with photography), but later did so on her own until 1882. Kugler moulded the photographer lady as an allegorical figure: her kindly smiling bust portrait was placed above the entrance of the studio, and slightly tilted sideways so as to be clearly seen 5. Pál Schusbeck: Design for Ferenc Kugler's studio. Budapest, Municipal Archive