Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)
ANNUAL REPORT • A 2008. ÉV - MARIANNA DÁGI: Highlighted Works of Art: Chamber Exhibitions Organized by the Collection of Classical Antiquities
16 VIEW OF THE EXHIBITION "SYMPOSION IN MACEDONIA" vase-painting: a cavalry-battle. The two youths fighting with raised spears, one mounted on a blue-grey horse and the other on a white one are presumably representations of the same figure in different states of being. Conspicuously, this vessel-type, which was originally used for mixing wine and water, was exclusively used in Canosa at this time as burial goods, a function attested by the pierced hole for offerings in the base of the Budapest vase. This clarifies the meaning of the almost completely symmetrical representation of mounted combat: it is a mortis et vitae indicium —a Duel of Life and Death. In one explanation, the female figure rising out of the floral scrolls which cover the neck and body of the vase may refer to a flourishing afterlife. The Roman marble statue of a seated female which was on display in the autumn exhibition (9 September - 16 November) once belonged to Lukács Enyedi (1845-1906), a significant figure in Hungarian public life around the turn of the last century and founder of the daily newspaper Szegedi Napló. Enyedi must have acquired the statue in Italy. It was auctioned following his death, and in the 1950s transferred from the Lukács Baths in Budapest to the Budapest Historical Museum before finally arriving in the Collection of Classical Antiquities as a long-term deposit in 2008. The statue was in very bad condition, with modern supplements in several places. Immediate restoration was required, which was brilliantly completed by József Varga and György Konkoly with the financial support of the National Cultural Fund. During the dismantling of the statue a thorough technical analysis was also carried out, which showed that the back side was cut off in part to make an even surface, part of it (the shoulder area) being coarsely hacked away. This suggests that the female figure had originally been seated on a high-backed throne, which was later damaged and transformed into a stool. It has so far proved impossible to ascertain whether the head, which plays a key role in the identification of the statue, is ancient, or a modern supplement. If it is ancient, and originally belonged to this statue, then the idealized face better fits the scheme of a goddess (Iuno, Demeter) seated
