A Parcel-Gilt Silver Torah Crown Set with "Jewels", Probably Polish, Late 18th Century

Dr. Ignaz Friedmann, Budapest, before 1944

Confiscated under Nazi rule

Jacobo and Asa Furman Collection, JAF no. 21, Treasures of Jewish Art (1997), pp. 62-63

The Serque Collection

HOFFMANN, Else: Dr. Friedmann Ignác műgyűjteménye (The collection of dr. Ignaz Friedmann). In: Múlt és Jövő, 1927. 130-135. (157)

HERLITZ, Georg, KIRSCHNER, Bruno (Hrsg.): Jüdisches Lexikon. Ein enzyklopädisches Handbuch des jüdischen Wissens in vier Bänden. Jüdischer Verlag, Berlin 1927–1930. (CLXX) 

STIEGLITZ, Joseph: Hebraica-Judaica-Sammlung, MS. s.d. Cat. no. 24a („Grosse Torahkrone in barockem Typus mit bunten Steinen, sehr prunkvoll gearbeitet. Polish, 1770. Höhe: ca 24 cm, Breite: ca 22 cm, Schätzpreis 900 DM”

MRAVIK, László: The "Sacco di Budapest" and Depredation of Hungary, 1938-1949. Budapest, 1998. 9323

We would like to thank Agnes Peresztegi and Dr. Zsuzsanna Toronyi for their assistance in researching this lot; the following is excerpted from a work Dr. Toronyi is preparing on the Friedmann Collection.

The Friedmann Collection of Judaica:

"Friedmann had what was undoubtedly the richest private collection of Jewish ritual and ceremonial objects in the world. According to the Hungarian Jewish Lexicon, his collection, which contained mostly liturgical and ritual objects, old silver Tora-crowns, breastplates, pointers, spice-boxes, ethrog boxes, old parchments, and other valuable Judaica, matched in size and quality the Jewish part of the world-famous Cluny Museum in Paris. It was kept in the Friedmann villa in numerous big glass showcases. I still remember that on the occasion of my visits to the Friedmann I would be irresistibly drawn to those vitrines, and almost physically ingest the beauty of the one art form in which Jewish artistic talent most intrinsically expressed itself in the centuries prior to Emancipation. In one issue of his monthly Father published an article about the Friedmann collection, written by a noted art historian and illustrated with numerous photographs. Years later, when I asked Ignác Friedmann’s son, Andrew Freeman, whom I met from time to time in New York, what had happened to his father’s collection during the Nazi period, he said he did not know."[1]

Raphael Patai was a teenage boy when he visited the Friedmann villa in Budapest, at the Trombitás út 20-22 and admired the huge glass showcases displaying the collection. His father, Joseph Patai belonged to a circle of friends of Jewish intellectuals, who, in addition to being recognized members of society, maintained a strong attachment to the Jewish community as well.

Friedmann himself was a lawyer, legal representative of the Wiener Kreditorenverein, and many other international corporations. After the Trianon peace treaty in 1920, he represented Hungarian Aristocrats in Den Haag. He was also a member of the Hungarian-Czech Chamber. In recognition of his efforts, he became Councilor General (kormányfőtanácsos) on 4th August 1927. Parallel to his work for the government, he was also in close connection with the Zionist intelligentsia of the era, he networked with Chaim Weizmann, Stephan Wise, and Otto Warburg in the Jewish Agency. In 1929 he became the president of the Keren Hayesod Hungary, and his wife, Dr. Gabriella Gold President of the WIZO Hungary.

He and his circle of friends were highly intellectual Jews, always in opposition to the official Jewish Community. Friedmann and his circle’s Zionist approach was always rejected by the community which proposed the integration into the Hungarian Society, despite even the Anti-Semitic tendencies. Friedmann was also involved in the “Isaiah Religious Society”, an informal Jewish circle organizing joint learning and Torah-reading sessions. They followed the liberal Judaism, which was almost unknown but unaccepted in Hungary; Friedmann himself delivered lectures about its values. The informal leader of the group was Ernest Namenyi, economist, grandson of Ludwig Philippson, in those years voluntary curator of the Hungarian Jewish Museum. Friedmann, Namenyi, Karoly Goldziher (mathematician, son of Ignaz Goldziher), Pal Ligeti philosopher, and others gathered frequently to share their intellectual achievements as well as to study Judaism. They were confident and conscious Jews but dissatisfied with the contemporary Jewish community life. Their spiritual and religious interest was very strongly intertwined with liberal-cultural values and the new interest towards Jewish visual culture. They read and reflected the publications of cultural Zionism, which was presented in Hungary by the magazine Múlt és Jövő, edited by Joseph Patai. This magazine was also the first platform to present Jewish art – including the collection of the Hungarian Jewish Museum, the Bezalel collection in Jerusalem, and the first publication about the Friedmann collection written by Ilse Hofmann and illustrated by the photos taken by Borka Alexander, daughter of the philosopher Bernat Alexander.

The Judaica collection of Ignaz Friedmann served as a historical treasury of the Jewish art to be admired and learned – and thanks to Friedmann’s network, a part of the collection became known via various publications, among them the Jüdisches Lexikon published in Berlin and several Hungarian books and articles.

The Fate of the Collection in 1944:

After the German invasion to Hungary, 22 th March 1944 Ignaz Friedmann and his wife were captured and sent to the internment camp in the Rökk Szilárd utca. Their villa was confiscated by the SS troops, and became the headquarter of the organization “Fürsorge und Versorgungstelle der in der Waffen SS dienenden Volksdeutschen in Ungarn.” All of their property, including the collection was seized. According to eyewitness testimonies, crates were transported to the Keleti Pályaudvar and transferred to Germany. The subsequent fate of the collection is still unknown. Ignaz Friedmann survived the war, and after a short stay in Israel, emigrated to Austria in 1951. He passed away in Zurich, on 16^th July 1956. His family submitted a restitution claim at the “Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz” in 1958. His claim was the longest litigation at the BRüG, refused only in 1978.

[1] Patai, Raphael: Apprentice in Budapest. Memories of a World That Is No More. Lexington Books, 1988. 392 p.