The Provenance of the Engraving and its Copperplate „Hungary as the Bulwark of Christianity”: Contributions to the History of the Jankovich Collection

Abstract

The paper investigates the provenance of the engraving depictingthe allegory of Hungaryas the bulwark of Christianity. It seeks to answer the question how the engraving, that hadserved originally as book illustration, entered the collection of the Historical Picture Gallery as anindividual sheet and how its copperplate was acquired by the museum. Based on indirect data we can conclude that the engravedcopperplate, together with several other out-of-use plates of the university printing house of Nagyszombat, was acquired around 1820 by the art collector Miklós Jankovich. In 1836 he sold his collection, together with his copperplates to the library of the Hungarian National Museum, then around 1940 the plates entered the collection of the Historical Picture Gallery. The watermark on the paper of the engraving indicates that Jankovich had made a new print of the copperplate in 1826, then it was acquired by the museum together with the copperplate.