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Resources > Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts

posted on

06 Sep 2010

Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts

Hopp Ferenc East-Asian Art Museum is a foundation with the aim to acquaint the Hungarian public with Oriental cultures and arts. 

Ferenc Hopp was founded in 1833 in the village of Fulnek in Moravia in a German speaking family. The profit he gained from the business was enough for him to enjoy his hobbies, namely to study geography and geology, to travel, and collect objects of art. In his will, he left several valuables to people and gave order for the foundation of the Hopp Museum.

In 1919, Zoltán Felvinczi Takács began organising the institution. It became a real museum in the following years with the help of the Museum of Fine Arts. The original material was complemented with material from the East taken from the National Museum. In 1906-7, the painting and wood engraving collection of Péter Vay, which he bought in Japan, was moved from the Museum of Fine Art. The collection of Dr. Tivadar Duka, the Japanese painting collection of Attila Szemere, the Wegener Chinese textile collection, and the archeological material of the expedition of Jenő Zichy taken in the Caucasus and in South Siberia in 1892-1903 was also moved to the museum. The Museum of Applied Arts provided objects brought at several Expos.

Nowadays the museum has over 20,000 objects. Two of the biggest collections present the art of Japan and China but the art collection from India, Korea, Indonesia, the Islam, and Viet Nam is also significant. The library of the museum has over 22 000 volumes to provide the researchers with sufficient material.