The Formation of the National Pantheon: Portrait Galleries of County Halls, City Halls, and Clubs in Nineteenth Century Hungary

Abstract

Abstract The paper deals with portraits of ‘great contemporaries’ commissioned for display in the meeting halls of different local institutions and civil associations in Hungary during the 19th century. It also documents the emergence of a unified pattern of visual representation in county and city halls and in clubs, elaborated and dispersed by national institutions at the turn of the century. The essay thus adds an important dimension to the history of ‘national’ art in Hungary in the 19th century, by uncovering the neglected history of the ‘national pantheons’ of local communities competing with or emulating each other, only to be marginalized by a unified, state-sponsored historical narrative at the turn of the century.