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

NEW ACQUISITIONS, NEW RESULTS - Bernadett GASSAMA-SZABÓ: Ignác Roskovics and the St. Stephen's Room in the Buda Palace

2. Ignác Roskovics: King Béla IV Photo: Archive of the HNG's Department of 19

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th Century Painting ures that, as Hauszmann put it, "these royal portraits will be sources for the art of Árpád era."

9 He painted twelve pictures, ten of them life-size depictions of Árpád-dynasty rulers and saints in groups of three, namely: St. Emeric, Béla I and St. Ladislaus; Coloman Beauclerc, St. Elizabeth and Andrew II; as well as Béla III, Béla IV (111. 2), Blessed Margaret and Andrew III. They were presumably selected with a view to the ancestry of the sovereign and his queen. Thus, Roskovics painted the idealized images of not only the rulers of the Árpád dynasty, but also the Árpád-housc forebears of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth.

10 Apart from these, he also painted two three-part super-port pictures for placing above the main doors of the room. Both represented scenes from the life of St. Stephen: in one, St. Adalbert crowns Stephen apostolic king; in the other, King St. Stephen proclaims the Christian faith." The room was completed by 1900, and was then set up at the Paris World's Fair upon request by the monarch. Beforehand, the Museum of Applied Arts had exhibited the material going to Paris for the Budapest public to see. The St. Stephen's Room itself had been set up temporarily at the factory of Endre Thék, who had had the particular honour of Franz Joseph personally visiting the demonstration and speaking highly of it.

12 In oil and watercolour versions, the cartoons of Roskovics were displayed at the spring exhibition of the Arts Hall,

13 and were awarded a small gold medal upon the unanimous decision of the jury headed by Count Gyula Andràssy.

14 The furnishings of the St. Stephen's Room were completely destroyed during the siege of Budapest in 1945 and the following reconstruction. Of the majolica pictures designed by Roskovics, only one, that of St. Stephen, survived in the estate of Lajos Hauszmann. According to family tradition, the elaborately wrought ceramic painting had been made as a sample piece for the portrait series of St. Stephen's Room, and was given to Hauszmann as a present by the artist.

15 The whereabouts of original Roskovics canvases were unknown to the general public for a long time, but they were actually held in the collection of the Hungarian National Museum. In 1990, however, by reference to the fact that the Museum collects primarily authentic portraits, and that " 19

th-century paintings of rulers and saints in the House of Árpád would rather belong to the profile of the National Gallery", it transferred them to the National Gallery.

16 Together with the two pictures depicting St. Stephen scenes, which had come from the Historical Portrait Gallery already in 1951, the whole series is now complete at the HNG. After his success with his Palace pictures, Roskovics was commissioned to paint the walls of the Kecskemét Great Church.

17 Again, he excelled, in 1902, he was awarded the 2000-crown prize for the best wall painting of the year founded by the Fine Arts Association for the jubilee of Károly Lötz.

18 By this time, he increasingly struggled with ill health, his eyesight deteriorated, though this did not at first hinder him at work. Later, however, his condition worsened, he had to be operated on in 1905.

19 The operation was successful, he gained his eyesight back, but not for long, he became completely blind a few years before his death. He stopped working after 1910.

20 The last major piece he began painting was an altarpiece for the Buda Castle Church, depicting St. Stephen as he receives the crown from Bishop Astrik. Recent research has brought to light that the wall paintings in the church of Budapest Terézváros are probably reduced versions of the St. Stephen's Room, bearing the signature of Roskovics, and dated 1915. The dating is interesting because the artist had completely lost his eyesight a few years before his death (1915), thus the dating of the pictures for 1914-15 perhaps means not the time of their making but that of their placing in the church.

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