The collection of 15-16th-century panel paintings and sculptures is of outstanding importance for Hungarian art history, because very few works of art survive from the centuries before the Turkish occupation of Hungary (1526-1699). During the Turkish rule, the previously flourishing central areas – where Buda, Esztergom, Székesfehérvár, Veszprém, the seats of secular and ecclesiastical power are located – were destroyed. Medieval works of art survived only in the territories unaffected by Turkish power, such as Transylvania and Upper Hungary. Already in the middle of the 19th century, the museum founder János Simor and Bishop Arnold Ipolyi recognized the historical and art historical significance of these medieval works of art, most of which were not any more in use. They collected the surviving, often damaged and overpainted, fragments of sculpted and painted altarpieces from the territories of their dioceses – thus saving them from decay. Simor brought to the museum mainly painted fragments of winged altarpieces that had been dismantled. Ipolyi’s collection enriched the museum mainly with sculptures. The ensemble of altarpieces and the Lord’s Coffin from the Benedictine Abbey of Garamszentbenedek form a related group of objects in the collection. The most beautiful examples of late medieval art in Hungary are Master MS’s four Passion scenes created in 1506 for the high altar of the Church of the Virgin in Selmecbánya (present-day Banská Stiavnica in Slovakia).
I.K.