Name of Monument:

Ráday Mansion

Also known as:

Kelecsényi Mansion

Location:

Pécel, Közép-Magyarország / Central Hungary, Hungary

Date:

1722–1730; 1755–1766; 1766–1774

Artists:

Architecture attributed to: András Mayerhoffer (1690–1771), János Mayerhoffer (1721–1780); painters: Johann Nepomuk Schöpf, Mátyás Schervitz, an unknown painter from Pozsony (Bratislava), Ádám Mányoki (1673–1757), János Jakab Stunder (1759–1811), Franz Paul Zallinger (1724–1800); stonemasons: Mátyás Kayr, János Pauk, Lipót András Conti; carpenter: János Lipót Weingartner, József Hacker; locksmith: János Hempfner; stove makers: “Conrad”, Ferenc Weiss, Franz Hoffmann, József Grossig, Johann Scheihenstüll; joiner: Henrik Rakovitz, András Cancsini

Denomination / Type of monument:

Secular architecture, residence, mansion

Patron(s):

Pál Ráday I (1677–1733); Gedeon Ráday I (1713–1792)

History:

The first multi-winged mansion in Pécel was built by Pál Ráday I between 1722 and 1730. The alterations that led to the mansion's present form (1755–66; 1766–1774) are associated with his son, Gedeon Ráday I, and were inspired by the “Grassalkovich style” of Gödöllő Palace.  Apart from stylistic similarities, these two buildings are also connected through their architects: András Mayerhoffer designed Gödöllő Palace, while his son, János Mayerhoffer, is thought to have designed Pécel Mansion possibly with his father's help. The murals in the two libraries were painted by Mátyás Schervitz between 1763 and 1766; Schervitz was still working there in 1770, probably in one of the larger rooms. However, the decayed ceiling mural, as well as the grisaille pictures (of which there were originally 16), are the works of an unknown artist from Pozsony (Bratislava). The Czech painter, Johann Nepomuk Schöpf, was also known to have worked in Pécel. Several stoves, made by local and foreign craftsmen, were set on the premises.
The bookshelves were a unique part of the interior decoration, as was the Ráday Gallery with its well-known collection of Hungarian portraits, which was destroyed by fire in 1825. The Ráday family's collection of paintings, built up in the 18th century, was sold by the family to Count Antal Brunswick and was auctioned in Wien, together with other precious works of art belonging to the Brunsvik family, in 1902.
After many attempts to sell the contents of the library following the death of Count Gedeon Ráday the library's founder, the family successfully sold the contents of the library and some paintings to the Danubian District of the Hungarian Reformed Church in 1861. The Ráday Collections of the Danubian District of The Hungarian Reformed Church contains three departments: the Library, Archive and Museum, which today, with their continuously growing collection from 1861, is open for research and public visits.
Today Ráday Mansion is managed by the National Trust of Monuments for Hungary.

Description:

Today the mansion is a two-storey U-shaped building, the side-wings of which surround a small courtyard. During alterations carried out under the auspices of Gedeon Ráday, parts of the old building were re-used. The central risalit of the main façade stands out emphasised by two alettes, an embossed gable and the cupola. The gate is framed by four pillars, above which the beautiful wrought-iron balcony is shouldered by corbels decorated with volutes. The side risalits only stand proud of the wall to a slight degree, completed with triangular tympana, which probably in the past bore coats of arms.
There are significant sequences of wall paintings in two rooms on the ground floor. The main library is divided by four red marble columns into nine bays, on which painted allegorical figures of the Sciences appear. Pallas Athene and the Triumph of Science can be seen in the middle, surrounded by History, Philosophy, Mathematics, Theology, Law, Medicine, Grammar, Poetics and Rhetoric. On the vault of the small library the Dionysiac Poet, Arion, appears riding a dolphin and playing the lute. This composition reflects an engraving from Bernard Pickart's Le Temple des Muses (Amsterdam, 1733). The side-wall pictures also portray the power of Music and Poetry represented by scenes from the Life of Orpheus.
Besides the main library, the 12,000–15,000-volume book collection (that consisted of 6,500 literary works) of Gedeon Ráday, filled more than five rooms in the mansion. The collection, and the policy by which Count Ráday selected books for it, was unique in the era: encyclopaedic in its remit, it aimed to own works from all branches of the natural sciences, humanities and literature. It included works in Hungarian, French literature of the Enlightenment and Protestant theology. With the systematisation of the collection based on the expertise of Count Ráday, the collection emerged as one of the most important and unique in Hungary; in all of Europe among private libraries.      
The wall paintings in the ceremonial hall on the upper floor (1766) follow a unique iconographic programme mentioned both by Kazinczy and Gedeon Ráday in the journal entitled Orpheus of 1790. The pictures were modelled on Pickart's aforementioned work and Ovid's Metamorphoses (Amsterdam, 1732) illustrated by Pickart and Philipp v. Gunst.
The ceiling fresco in the ceremonial hall, which was ruined in 1825, illustrated the Fall of Phaeton; thematically linked are two of the grisaille paintings on the side walls depicting two scenes from the Life and Death of Phaeton. These pictures, along with the other grisailles depicting scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses completed with Gedeon Ráday's own Hungarian hexametric commentaries, transmit a homogeneous pictorial message of the idea of Gedeon Ráday.
In the “picture room facing the courtyard” immediately next to the ceremonial hall, images of Habsburg monarchs copied from coins reveal their patron's taste. The Hercules Room in the west wing is also worthy of mention, where wall paintings illustrating the Labours of Hercules can be seen, again based on Pickart's engravings.

Ráday Mansion in Pécel is a fine example of Hungarian 18th-century gentry-class architecture. Its significance lays not so much in the architectural form of the building – which mirrors the owner's social status – but in the unique intellectual character of the Protestant Ráday family that is revealed in the interior decoration. The extensive library of Gedeon Ráday I, the son of Pál Gedeon I, was extraordinary for its time, yet he coupled his learnedness with artistic sensitivity; for instance he applied his own poems to certain murals in the mansion. The mansion of the “holy old man”, as Hungarian language-reformer Ferenc Kazinczy called him, was the apogee of the cultural taste of the day.

How Monument was dated:

Based on written and visual resources, as well as stylistic and wall investigations and research and archaeological excavations.

Selected bibliography:

Garas, K., Magyarországi festészet a 18. században (Painting in Hungary in the 18th century), Budapest, 1955, pp. 126–127.
Zsindely, E., “A péceli Ráday-kastély” (“The Ráday Mansion in Pécel”), Művészettörténeti Értesítő, 1956, 4, pp. 253–276.
Segesváry, V., The History of a Private Library in 18th Century Hungary, Budapest, 2007.

Citation of this web page:

Péter  Sárossy "Ráday Mansion" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;BAR;hu;Mon11;22;en

Prepared by: Péter Sárossy Péter Sárossy

SURNAME: Sárossy
NAME: Péter

AFFILIATION: National Trust of Monuments for Hungary

TITLE: Art Historian; MWNF DBA author (Hungary)

CV:
Péter Sárossy works as an Art Historian at The National Trust of Monuments for Hungary. Awarded his MA in Art History and Italian Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, he then completed a fellowship in Italy. Currently, Péter is a PhD student at the same university in the Faculty of Humanities, Italian Literature and Civilisation. Formerly, he worked as an Art Historian at the State Centre for the Conservation and Restoration of Historic Monuments, Budapest, and lectured in Baroque Literary Theory at the Eötvös Loránd University. He has published on a wide range of subjects, including ancient and modern Italian art and literature and the history of conservation in Hungary. He is a contributing author for MWNF DBA (Hungary).
Copyedited by: Terézia BardiTerézia Bardi

SURNAME: Bardi
NAME: Terézia Anna

AFFILIATION: National Trust of Monuments for Hungary

TITLE: Art Historian, Vice Director for Research at The National Trust of
Monuments for Hungary; MWNF DBA local co-ordinator (Hungary), author
and copy-editor

CV:
Terézia Bardi, Vice Director for Research at the National Trust of Monuments for Hungary since 2004, was awarded her MA in History and History of Art at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. After a period of fellowships mainly in Italy, Terézia gained her PhD from the Faculty of Art History at the same university for her thesis Presentation and Representation – the European Reception of the Liberation of Buda in 1686: Feast and Public Opinion. Her main fields of research are 17th-and18th-century Baroque and Rococo: the spectacles, festival decorations and associated iconography – including theatre productions of the period – and interior decoration of historic houses. Since 1988, she has edited a number of art historical books that include some on Oriental art and architecture. She is MWNF DBA’s local (Hungarian) co-ordinator, author and copy-editor.
Translation by: Judit Harangozó, Philip Barker
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: HU 22