Gyugyi Collection, Porcelain museum in Zsolnay Cultural Quarter, Pécs, Hungary
The Gyugyi Collection is a Zsolnay porcelain exhibition in the Sikorski House, an Art Nouveau villa in the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter of Pécs. It holds nearly 700 unique ceramic objects, six watercolour design drawings and two photo albums, mostly vases and vessels made between 1870 and 1930, with emphasis on the early historicist years 1878–1885 and the Art Nouveau period 1898–1908.
In August 2009 László Gyugyi, an electrical engineer and collector living in the United States, agreed to sell his private Zsolnay collection to Pécs for half its estimated market value of 2.5 million euros. The city pledged a stand-alone exhibition, and the Art Nouveau Sikorski House was the first building completed in the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter for it. President Pál Schmitt opened the display on 1 September 2010.
The exhibition opened on 1 September 2010 and was inaugurated by President Pál Schmitt. Its title, "The Gyugyi Collection – The Golden Age of Zsolnay", frames the pieces as examples of the factory's historicist and Art Nouveau periods. A painted plate marked and dated in Vilmos Zsolnay's own handwriting was made by József Rippl-Rónai, and most objects were shown at world's fairs in Paris (1878, 1900), Sydney (1879) or Antwerp (1894).
The museum is located in an easily accessible part of the cultural quarter and can be explored on foot. Allow time for an unhurried visit to examine the many details of the objects, as the collection is displayed closely together.
Many pieces were selected directly from the factory furnaces and represent works that rarely made their way into other collections. This direct connection to production makes them especially representative examples of the craftsmanship quality of those years.
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