“If the museum wishes to obtain better things, it will have to risk higher sums.” The Acquisitions for the National Museum at the Auction of the Szapáry Collection in Murska Sobota

Abstract

In 1930 and 1931, a public auction was held at the Murska Sobota Castle in the far east of the Drava Banate in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The movable property of the Hungarian citizen and landowner Count Ladislav Szapáry, the owner of the Murska Sobota Castle, was being sold off. The analysis of the sales records, auction catalogue and other materials connected to the auction, brings about valuable information about the Count’s collection and illuminates the way through which the artworks left the castle in Murska Sobota. It also presents the starting point for finding out the items’ subsequent fate and, oftentimes, their present location. It was thus possible to compile a complete list of the objects from Szapáry’s castle, which Josip Mal, the director of the National Museum in Ljubljana, purchased at the auction in 1930, and present them in detail. Even though Mal acted rather hastily when buying the items and spent the means that were at his disposal, his selection of objects was deliberate, far-reaching and valid, since it primarily consists of exceptional works of art that deserve greater attention than they have received so far.