Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)
JOACHIM SLIWA: Egyptian Hall and the Exhibition of Egyptian Art in London, 1821-1822
coade-stone, which served as a type of abutment. Those two quite clumsy statues which were to present Isis and Osiris, were described by the contemporaries as "sturdy Ethiopians", and even sometimes as "Red Indians". Except for all the specified construction elements having clearly Egyptian character, also the further details have to refer to the pharaonic exotic. It is necessary to mention here for example winged solar disks on the surface of cavetto cornices: above the entrance at the ground floor storey and twice above the sideways windows of the second storey. The surface of the cavetto cornice that tops the façade and the cornice that divides floors is whereas covered with ornament composed of situated side by side cartouches sequences instead of stylised leaves creating the typical Egyptian kheker frieze. Also characteristic are winded torus stressing vertical divisions and the presence of bogus hieroglyphs at the window frames and at the entrance portico. In the initial idea of the architect only the façade was to have so rich, egyptianizing character. Just somewhat later, about 1819, the interior of so called Great Room also gained the decoration with the egyptianizing character. But it was the work of another artist - John Buonarotti Papworth (1775-1847) 7 . The so-called Great Room (also named Sale Room or Great Apartment) was situated on the axis of the building (the entrance has led through the portico flanked with lotus columns). The room additionally possessed upper light coming from the centrally situated dome. As we can conclude from the preserved drawing specification, we could percept here even a kind of a surfeit of Egyptian motives: the room was surrounded by the rich decorated gallery, supported on the Hathoric columns, the multitude of bogus hieroglyphs and numerous egyptianizing emblems (Fig. 2). The characteristic façade of Egyptian Hall, created by P. F. Robinson was variously sized up by the contemporary. It bowled people over, but it also became the object of the sharp critics from, among other things, such an authority as Sir John Soane (1753-1837) 8 , whose opinion was as follows: A Sebastian Gahagan, from the well known family of sculptors from Dublin, especially active between 1802 and 1835. The author of many sculptures and busts, among the other things of Ch. Bumey at Westminster Abbey, Thomas Picton at St. Paul Cathedral in London and co-author of the statue of George Canning (now in London's Parliament). See Thieme-Becker, op. cit. (note 5), Vol. 13, Leipzig 1920, pp. 68-69. 7 An architect and cartoonist, he occupied himself with decoration of the interiors and furniture. Cfr. DNB (note 3), vol. XLIII, London 1895, pp. 196-200 (A. Cates). ' John Soane, an excellent architect of English classicism, the author of many well known buildings in London (eg. Bank of Anglia or Dulwich College Art Gallery) and numerous rural residences, also an eminent collector. Cfr. J. Sliwa, Zabytki egipskie z kolekcji Sir Johna Soanc'a w Londynie, in: Archeológia I starozytnicy. Studio dedykowane Profesorowi Andrzejowi Abramowiczowi w 70 rocznice urodzin, £odz 1997, pp. 285-292.
