DLA035-0133  Translation

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM

DIRECTOR’S OFFICE

Ref. No. 80

Budapest, 8th February 1924.

Esteemed Sir,

Thanks to the mediation of His Excellency Baron Guyla Forster,^[1] your gracious gift has come into my hands, a copy of that splendid volume in which a series of masterpieces by the esteemed Maestro is reproduced and furnished with sensitively penned textual commentary, and is thus made available to the art-loving world at large.^[2] I have placed this valued volume with great delight in the Hungarian National Museum’s Széchényi Library, in which repository of our national cultural treasures it will remain as a perpetual reminder of the glory which the esteemed Maestro has brought to the name of Hungary by means of artworks whose lustre can never fade.

In the name of the Hungarian National Museum, with whose leadership I have been entrusted, I send you grateful thanks for this gift and for so kindly remembering us, and beg that you also accept this expression of my sincere regard.

Dr Bálint Hóman

Editorial Note:

Hóman Bálint (1885–1951), director of the Hungarian National Museum from 1923–32. He was later Hungary’s Education Minister. After WWII, the People’s Tribunal found him guilty of war crimes and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The harsh conditions took their toll; ill and emaciated, he died in captivity. Though posthumously absolved of alleged war crimes in 2015, his reputation remains dogged by allegations of anti-semitism.

AH (translation)

04/06/2025

KB (summary)

14/10/2009