Original Kisfaludi Strobl Statue Cast 33 Years after the Death of the Master

The statue cast 33 years after the death of the master based on the original gypsum cast is shown at the opening ceremony of the Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl exhibition at the Ferenc Móra Museum. The ceremony begins at 15.00 on 11 April.

The original statue cast around 1922 portrayed the count György Pallavicini. The new bronze portrait can be seen at the Ferenc Móra Museum from 11 April in the framework of a large-scale Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl program series. The statue is shown for the first time.

Beside his personal belongings, we show 85 works of art by Kisfaludi Strobl. Among the statues made with varied technique, the visitors can see bronze, marble, terracotta, nature, as well as gypsum, aluminium, medallion and cast tablets. The body of the showing is borrowed from the Kisfaludi Strobl collection of the Göcsej Museum and the National Gallery. The arts historian László Borbély selected the artworks.

The National Archives, the Blanka Teleki Collage of Szeged, and the master's family each lent an artwork to be shown. The Blanka Teleki Collage of Szeged owns the gypsum that portrays the countess Blanka Teleki, a pioneer in education in Hungary who first hid in Szeged after the failure of the Revolution of 1848/49.

A real curiosity of the showing is the portrait of György Pallavicini recently completed after the commission of the Ferenc Móra Museum. To complete this old-new work of art, the institution had to acquire the leave of the master's daughter, Éva Kisfaludi Strobl, Mrs. Visy Dr, and the Museum of Zalaegerszeg. The museum announced an application for the casting and embossing work. The manager of the museum István Zombori commissioned the Munkácsy Prize winner sculptor Sándor Tóth who was the student of Kisfaludi himself from 1854 to 1959 at the Collage of Fine Arts. Zita Borbála Pallavicini, the great granddaughter of the count also takes part at the opening ceremony. Zita Borbála Pallavicini began to learn Hungarian at age 15. She works as a journalist at present. She lived in Baghdad, Vienna and Prague too during her childhood. She gave birth to her son on a plane seven years ago. The noble offspring regained the castle in Tiszadob recently. She intends to reconstruct it the way she would be able to host celebrities of the world.

'It is the only authentic portrait of the count György Pallavicini, the descendant of the old aristocrat family. The figure is life-like, with noble expression and in ornamented cloths. He wears a brocade-patterned vest, a Cossack shirt and scarf.' - says Tamás Szabó, the head of the fine arts department of the collection.

The Ferenc Móra Museum salutes the art of one of the greatest Hungarian sculptors who made over 2600 portraits and 50 public statues with the Kisfaludi Strobl exhibition. Works of art by Kisfaludi can be found in several collections around the world, among them the Ermitage, the Pushkin Museum the British Museum and the Tretiak Art Gallery of Moscow. His most widely known of his artworks is the monumental Statue of Freedom on Gellért Hill which became the symbol of Budapest.

His most famous portrait, that of George Bernard Shaw, was made in England. It is well known that Kisfaludi was friends with the playwright who wrote the following on the photos of the statue:'it is better than the original'. Another famous piece by Kisfaludi Strobl is of 'Elizabeth, the Heir Apparent to the Throne' made in 1937, as well as his statue of 'Elizabeth II.'