The Čakovec Stone Bust Collection: New Identifications, Possible Dating and the Identity of its Commissioner

Abstract

The Museum of Međimurje in Čakovec, situated within a former Zrinski residence, stores a stone bust collection containing portraits of 17th-century Croatian and Hungarian dignitaries. Most of the identified portraits have been modelled on Elias Widemann’s engravings from the series Icones Illustrium Heroum Hungariae. So far researchers have formed two opposing opinions concerning the collection’s interpretation: while some claim the collection was commissioned by the Zrinski family during the second half of the 17th century, others insist it was commissioned by the Festetics in the 1820s. This article proposes another engraved portrait series as a model for the collection, namely Franz Leopold Schmittner’s engravings published in Corpus Juris Hungarici (1751), which can be used to confirm or newly establish the identity of seven busts. The authors examine in what way this new find affects the interpretation of the collection’s commission and its contextualization within Croatian and Hungarian art.