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The Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, Budapest, holds eighty-one Gandhāran statues. Exquisite Buddha and bodhisattva statues are included in this collection, which comprise a representative group of this unique Hellenistic style Buddhist school of sculpture. Almost the entire collection was gifted to the institution by Imre Schwaiger, a Hungarian-born, internationally acclaimed art dealer and connoisseur in the first half of the twentieth century. Although the most outstanding statues have been exhibited at the museum since they arrived, the first occasion when the entire collection was put on display took place only this year, in 2024, when the temporary exhibition Land of Buddhas. Gandhāra opened its doors to the visitors. Accompanying the exhibition, for the very first time, a comprehensive catalogue of all the artworks of the Gandhāran collection, illustrated with fresh and artistic photographs, is published.
The English catalogue is a much-abridged version of the Hungarian original. The reason behind this is that English-language readers have easier access to the rich literature available on The English version thus contains only the most important elements that are unique to the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts in Budapest. It includes the description of each Gandhāran sculpture in the collection, which is complemented by a study on conservation of the statues written by Zoltan Hering, stone conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, who handled the statues and conducted material analyses. A detailed study on the life of Imre Schwaiger is also placed in the present volume to give an account of this generous art expert and his interesting life, starting out from Hungary and building a successful art dealership in India and in London.
Land of Buddhas – Gandhāra, April 11, 2024 – March 30, 2025, Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, Budapest
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