„Megbízottam szoborral hétfőn este indul…” Az egervári Straub-szobrok múzeumba kerülésének és másoltatásának története dokumentumok tükrében

Abstract

The rococo wooden statues of St Sebastian and St Roch were purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts in 1916. Earlier they had adorned the high altar of the church of St Catherine of Alexandria in Egervár (Zala county) flanking the tabernacle. Their first researcher, Mária Aggházy attributed them to the Graz sculptor Philipp Jakob Straub (Wiesensteig 1706–Graz 1774). The Egervár church of mediaeval origin belonged after the Ottoman era to the advowson of the Széchényi family who had trade and art relations with Styria, too; they had the church rebuilt and furnished in baroque style in the mid-18th century.As part of the contract of sale, the museum undertook and financed the making of exact copies of the statues to replace the original ones on the high altar, where they still are. It can be reconstructed from the correspondence of 1912–’22 preserved in and Museum of Fine Arts Archives and the Archives of the Diocesan Archives in Szombathely that probably little before 1912 the statues were transferred to the Szombathely episcopacy for conservation. Bishop János Mikes had them restored and maybe also exhibited. Their sale became necessary for the parish to be able to renovate the deteriorating Egervár church. The deal was concluded with an ordinary procedure, but World War I and the inflation it entailed greatly protracted the making of the copies and boosted the costs. Eventually, the replicas were completed in two phases by teachers of the National Royal Hungarian School of Applied Arts, sculptor Sándor Matéka (St Sebastian) and decorator and furniture designer Béla Kajdy (St Roch).