Welcome to the Christian Museum’s online catalogue of medieval works from Hungary and the German and Austrian territories.
For the first time in the history of the museum, we have made accessible all the material from one of our most important collections, including both widely-known and previously unpublished works, for researchers and the general public alike. We aimed to provide a summary review of basic data rather than a comprehensive analysis of each work—the latter will be a task for the future. The published database will serve as an appropriate starting point for all further research. In some cases, however, a more extensive description was merited within the framework of the ‘Summary Catalogue’. As a result, the length of the entries and the nature of the information provided are not uniform. An online version of the catalogue seemed an obvious choice not only because it ensures up-to-date, free access but also because it allows the continuous and immediate publication of new research results.
In contrast to the earlier, printed summaries, we did not separate the works according to their origins in Hungary or the Austrian and German territories. From a professional standpoint, the often close art historical connections between the objects of various regions clearly justify their treatment as units. Moreover, the place where the works were made or first used frequently cannot be determined prior to a thorough analysis of the stylistic connections and in the absence of exact information about their origins. Earlier, identifying many important works from the collection of Arnold Ipolyi was difficult and full of uncertainties. However, among the inventories in the recently published Ipolyi estate dossier, one was discovered dating to September 1916, prior to the transfer of the works to Budapest. It provided considerably more information than other known records to date. As a result, objects from the Ipolyi Collection can now be identified with relative assurance. (In the provenance section of each entry, we quoted the pertinent texts as verification). A lot of uncertainty surrounds questions of attribution too: we decided artists and workshops based on persuasively argued (new) results or on known determinations from earlier literature. For attributes that are entrenched in public knowledge but have been modified recently in the art history literature, we have put the names in parenthesis (for example, the Master of Jánosrét, or the first and second masters of Aranyosmarót), while indicating our present opinions.
Emese Sarkadi Nagy, PhD
Art historian
The online catalogue was made with the assistance of the project NKFI (OTKA) 104215. We are grateful for their contribution. The research was further supported by a grant from EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00001 ‘Complex improvement of research capacities and services at Eszterházy Károly University’. Many thanks to Judit Majorossy for transcribing the inscriptions on the objects and to Györgyi Poszler for editing the entire text.
Any questions or comments can be sent to us at: keresztenymuzeum[at]gmail[dot]com
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Suggested reference:
Emese Nagy Sarkadi: Christian Museum’s Online Catalogue of Medieval Works from Hungary and the German and Austrian Territories. Christian Museum, 2017. (Date accessed and link).
© Sarkadi Nagy Emese
© Keresztény Múzeum
© Mudrák Attila