ULA University Library
Nowadays, very few people know that this beautiful stove once belonged to a private residence with impressive interiors and a spectacular view of Pest. It is one of the remaining original furnitures.
Of course, today’s visitors, if they succeeded in visiting the second floor, would see very little or nothing of this, because the private flat, the current director’s office, the secretariat in front of it, the meeting room and the exhibition hall are all prohibited to visitors and their function is not the same as it used to be.
The painting’s fate had not yet ended, after 1945 it was decided to cover it with drapery for an indefinite period. Director László Mátrai in his letter to rector György Székely informed him of this situation. He proposed to have a new portrait of Loránd Eötvös (the university was named after him). A report by dr. András Tóth in 1958 records that this replacement was planned with a budget of 500.000 forints, however the actual costs exceeded this amount, so the plans were abandoned.
In Jaroslav Hašek’s novel, The Good Soldier Švejk two characters, Bretschneider and Palevic have the following conversation regarding the Emperor’s portrait:
Bretschneider said no more, but stared disappointedly round the empty bar.
"You used to have a picture of the Emperor hanging here," he began again presently, "just at the place where you've got a mirror now."
In the 1848/49 war of independence, Mór Than served under the pseudonym ”Apáti” with Görgey. He probably never imagined that he would later paint portraits of Franz Ferdinand. Above the main entrance, between two columns, is a painting of the king in his 40s in Hungarian regalia. With this work, Than became a member of an elite portrait painting club. However, a former director, Zoltán Ferenczi, mistakenly called the portrait artist György Vastagh.
In his letter to the Finance Office (16.07.1930) he wrote that there were problems in the cooperation with the firm of Böhm and KállaySgraffito, (Italian: “scratched”), in the visual arts, a technique used in painting, pottery, and glass, which consists of putting down a preliminary surface, covering it with another, and then scratching the superficial layer in such a way that the pattern or shape that emerges is of the lower colour. (From britannica.com)
In his letter to his parents (09.08.1845) Garay wrote about his new job as assistant librarian, which at the time was a brand new position. He mentions that in 3-4 years another new position will be created: custos a.k.a. librarian guard. The assistants worked from 9 am to 2 pm, had the afternoon off and didn’t have to work on Sundays and Mondays.