Ongoing research
In the past months two articles of mine on the Unger playing card making and artist family went into press: First the one for the International Playing Card Society journal The Playing Card. The second one is the one summarized in previous posts for the yearbook of the museum, where the Unger exhibition was held in 2010. More is to come and I’ll keep my faithful readership posted about it.
At present I am amassing further literature from libraries worldwide, there is much new I have discovered beyond the findings during my last research trip to Hungary in February. All highly insightful.
On Familiy History and Tigers
THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
New findings
THE Master of Ravenswood had mounted the ambling hackney which he before
rode, on finding the accident which had happened to his led horse, and,
for the animal’s ease, was proceeding at a slow pace from the Tod’s Den
towards his old tower of Wolf’s Crag, when he heard the galloping of a
horse behind him, and, looking back, perceived that he was pursued by
young Bucklaw, who had been delayed a few minutes in the pursuit by
the irresistable temptation of giving the hostler at the Tod’s Den some
recipe for treating the lame horse. This brief delay he had made up by
hard galloping, and now overtook the Master where the road traversed
a waste moor. “Halt, sir,” cried Bucklaw; “I am no political agent–no
Captain Craigengelt, whose life is too important to be hazarded in
defence of his honour. I am Frank Hayston of Bucklaw, and no man injures
me by word, deed, sign, or look, but he must render me an account of
it.”Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor
What this has to do with the Unger family history and why I’ll explain at a later point. One finding leading to the next…
Unger
Welcome to the Unger-blog!
This blog deals with the history of a Hungarian playing-card making and artist family:
In the early 19th century master playing-card maker Mátyás Unger the Elder (1789-1862), originally from Sopron and trained there, established a workshop in Győr. In this blog new evidence from various sources on the history of this craftsman and artist middling sort family is presented in more detail. This especially with view to the playing-card production of Mátyás and his like-named son, Mátyás the Younger (1824-78), as well as the life and works of his second eldest son Alajos (1814-48). He was an early Hungarian historical painter and draughtsman trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna between 1833-1842, particularly under Leopold Kupelwieser. Various works of his have now been rediscovered, after his two oil paintings “Recapture of Győr” (1840) and his family portrait (1843) had been acquired by the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest in 1970 and 1974.
Apart from a serious of mainly study drawings, many of which are male nudes, the recently found works are his extended Holy Family (sacra conversazione) “La vierge au bas-relief” after Leonardo da Vinci’s student Cesare da Sesto, a biedermeier picture clock with a view of Venice and his “Baptism of Vajk”; the later King Stephen I.
The Unger family produced different kinds of playing cards such as German cards with Oedenburg pattern, French, csitt/whist, William Tell and tarock cards. The family became well-known within Hungary particularly for their cards depicting national costumes in the 1840s. Various wooden printing blocks, for card wraps and one Tell game, were donated to the collection of the Benedictine grammar school in the 1870s by Mátyás Unger the Younger and later became part of the Xántus János Museum’s collection. The new findings are further elements in the writing of the history of Central European playing-card making families. In addition to this, with the new findings on Alajos Unger, the art history of Győr of the first part of the 19th century as well as the beginnings of Hungarian national art in that century are further illuminated through our work.
In future, we will share more material on the family here, on their playing cards, the artwork by Alajos Unger, linguistic questions including 19th century lexicography in Hungary with relation to the family, the family’s collection of small religious devotional objects (19th/20th century), artwork by other family members including a serious of photos (large-format negatives) taken during WWII as well as a large collection of old letters and family photographs (19th/20th century). A homepage proper is in preparation.
Just a photo
Due to my change of jobs I have not found the time to update my blog recently, although there actually would be much new to report on the Ungers. For the time being, however, all I can offer is the photo below, which shows key Unger places. I took it in Gyor in July to try and continue my research and met my friends Dr Mária Unger, dr Gyula Vadász, my exhibition interpreter István Pozsonyi for a dinner and, at the museum, curator Z Sz. Z showed me some documents on Alajos’ works I had wanted to see for a long time, but as he’d said, they did not contain any new information.
.
Research in Vienna and back to the place where it all began in 1987
This past weekend we celebrated my father’s 65th birthday in the the village where he was born, Weissenkirchen-on-Danube, Wachau, Austria. There, the research into my family’s history had once begun in May of 1987. It was then that my grandmother showed the numerous old family photographs to me, various of which had been taken in Győr or Sopron in the 19th century. The green house in the picture below used to be my grandparents’ house.
Before I went there, however, I had a highly informative appointment and long conversation with archivist Ferdinand Gutschi at the archives of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. This confirmed some of the beliefs I have come to hold about Alajos, his life and work I have been investigating particularly since last summer.
Ways forward
This blog reflects how my life and the research into my family are intertwined, nothing unusual in the English local history tradition I’ve been trained in. David Hey‘s Family History and Local History in England is a case in point.
This blog certainly is not a stream of consciousness, but rather reflects the fact that life happens and as such it can only be planned to a certain degree. Suddenly new doors open and the path originally envisaged must be abandoned. This certainly holds true here too. At the end of last year and beginning of this, my life was unexpectedly gaining new momentum and my priorities shifted. This family history project still greatly matters to me, but there is much else going on simultaneously.
At the moment, my research is focussed on confirming that the house in Győr I think is my family’s former place really is where they lived and manufactured their cards for many years. More research-related travel to the archives is to follow next month.
Unsolved family mysteries I — What happened to Géza Unger?
One of the hitherto unsolved mysteries in our family’s history is the fate of Géza (Viktor) Unger. Géza was my great-grandmother Ancs’ uncle, her father’s youngest brother born in Győr in 1860.
Accoding to family lore, he deserted the army and emigrated to Nis, Serbia where he married a jeweller’s widow. Why exactly he deserted is unknown to us and it is surprising because his two older brothers Alajos and József (Pepi) both served in the army and his uncle, painter and draughtsman Alajos Unger, had served in the National Guard for a while
What backs this story are both an entrance in the town council minutes in his hometown from 1880, where it says that he was persecuted for an offence related to his military service in Budapest. Additionally there is a photograph by the Serbian photographer Milos Kostic in the possession of my family, which depicts what is probably a somewhat older Géza with a woman, most likely his wife. She might have been pregnant. Milos Kostic worked in Belgrade, but whether or not he also worked in Nis I have been unable to find out so far.
Other than the photograph and the information passed down orally to us, we know nothing about how he fared, how long he lived, whether he did have offspring. The search is ongoing.
Photos to follow in an update
