A secretly locked Terasure Chest: Art Collections of Arnold Skutezky
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The Jewish industrialist and collector Arnold Skutezky (1850-1936), who belonged to a group of private collectors engaged in the wool industry, was undoubtedly one of the leading and significant personalities of European collecting in his time. He represented a kind of ideal example of a collector who takes a careful and considered approach to build his collection. During more than forty years of collecting activity, he created several collections as a collection of paintings, drawings, coins, antiques and art historical literature. What did these collections look like, what function did they fulfil, and where are these art objects today? Thanks to the reconstruction of individual collections and archival research, we find that collections reflect the identity of the collector as they are deeply bound to the interests and desires of their owner, who invested in them not only his material resources but especially a part of his personality. Individual units in different periods of his life served distinct functions: a form of self-determination, a way of representing social status or capital to be used in times of need. With the new research on these collection units and their reconstruction, the collections will avoid the oblivion that awaited many other private collections and their owners. |
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