Aklan, Anna : Land of Buddhas – Gandhāra. Catalogue of the Gandhāran Sculptures of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts

Anna Aklan,
Land of Buddhas – Gandhāra.
Catalogue of the Gandhāran Sculptures of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts

Budapest 2024

ISBN 978-615-81396-7-0

248 S./pp., zahlr. Farb-Abb./num. colour figs., 32 x 23 cm; kartoniert/hardcover



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 catalogue includes the description of each Gandhāran sculpture in the collection, which is complemented by a study on conservation of the statues written by Zoltán 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.