Porträts, Maler, Mäzene. Zur Geschichte des Porträts im 16.–17. Jahrhundert im Königreich Ungarn

Buzási, Enikő (2014) Porträts, Maler, Mäzene. Zur Geschichte des Porträts im 16.–17. Jahrhundert im Königreich Ungarn. ACTA HISTORIAE ARTIUM ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 55 (1). pp. 23-104. ISSN 0001-5830

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Abstract

Portraits, Painters, Patrons. To the 16–17th Century History of Portraiture in Areas of the Hungarian Kingdom. The paper reviews the historical development of the portrait in Hungary in light of the early data on artists and works, changes in social demand, the emergence of diverse portrait functions and the changes in portrait iconography over the 17th century. The author concludes from the sources (inventories, last wills) that until the end of the 17th century the portrait was not a valued property but a fairly insignificant element of furnishing, except in a few art collecting aristocrats’ homes. In the second half of the 16th century, the portrait was often the document of social contacts. The earliest known painted portraits from the mid-16th century show members of the Hungarian upper nobility who belonged to the “supranational” aristocracy of the Habsburg Empire via some family relationship. Of these, the author devotes separate attention to portraits of a member each of the Thurzó, Zrínyi, Pálffy families, and to the one-time collection of portraits that probably passed from the wife of Ferdinand I., Anne of Hungary, to the wife of Count Ferenc Blagay and served as the model for several depictions in the portrait-book of Hieronymus Beck. There is mention again of the portrait of the Lord Steward of the Hungarian king’s household, János Krusics attributed to Giuseppe Arcimboldo by the author in 2008. Data in the inventories of several aristocratic households reveal that large, full-length portraits were painted from the second third of the 17th century. They were also specified by the occasion they were painted for, e.g. depiction of the deceased (31 catafalque portraits or their mentions are known from the 17th century), engagement, donation. Family series and ancestors’ galleries began to be formed in the last third of the 17th century under the inspiration of two sets of engravings, Elias Widemann’s portraits of 100 Hungarian noblemen (Vienna, 1652) and the “Mausoleum” of Hunnish-Hungarian leaders and kings (Nuremberg, 1664) ordered by Lord Chief Justice Ferenc Nádasdy. Both had a great influence on the development of 17th century Hungarian portraiture, first of all in terms of iconography. Finally, the paper discusses the alternative portrait representations of Hungarian aristocrats integrated in the court elite through the interpretation of inventories in Ferenc Nádasdy’s residences, pointing out the “double representation” they demonstrate one the one hand, and analyzing court portraits ordered with the aim of winning some political position or court dignity, on the other hand.

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