Medieval and Renaissance Plaster Casts

Introduction

Established in 1896, the Museum of Fine Arts inherited a rich collection of paintings and a smaller collection of statues from its predecessor, the National Picture Gallery. Alongside its paintings, following the usual practice at the time, the museum planned to present the history of sculpture by means of plaster casts of the famous works rather than through the display of original works. The museum’s intention was to display the plaster casts in the large halls on the ground floor of the building. Whereas a part of the casts of classical antiquities came from the National Museum, three hundred or so plaster casts of medieval and Renaissance artworks were ordered by the museum from foreign casting workshops between 1903 and 1912. These casts were exhibited in the building’s Renaissance and Romanesque Halls. In the 1920s and 1930s, due to changing trends, the perceived value of the plaster casts declined. As a result, they were poorly cared for during World War II. The damaged plaster casts were squeezed into the Romanesque Hall and stored under poor conditions for more than seventy years. Meanwhile a part of the plaster casts was lent to institutions in the countryside. The rehabilitation of the collection began in 2015 with the restoration of the plaster casts and resulted in exhibitions that present major parts of the cast collection in the Star Fortress of Komárom and in the visible storage of the National Museum Conservation and Storage Centre in Budapest. Unfortunately, several casts have been lost or destroyed during the long decades of negligence. The present database comprise the complete collection of medieval and Renaissance casts, even including those that cannot be traced anymore.