Plaque - Ágoston Trefort

Front: The bottom border shows the inscription TREFORT ÁGOSTON 1817-1888, surmounted by the bust of a bearded man, looking to the left.

Back: The top left quarter of the picture shows two half figures, representing industry and art: a worker figure, dressed in leather apron, holding a hammer, with a woman in Hungarian clothing, holding a painter's palette, kissing the man on the forehead. To the right, there is an inscription under the escutcheons of art: “ALAPÍTÓJÁNAK ÉS ELSŐ ELNÖKÉNEK / A MAGYAR IPARMŰVÉSZETI TÁRSULAT” [To the founder and first chairman /From the Hungarian Society for Applied Arts]

L. Berán made several plaques commemorating Ágoston Trefort. He won a second prize at the Trefort-plaque competition, organized by the Hungarian Society for Applied Arts (for the pictures of other awarded pieces of the competition, see Magyar Iparművészet Vol.6, 1903, pp.292-293), and then he also won a first prize, on a smaller competition (see Gohl 1905 No.536, Nagy 1981 p.497, ill. 932, back). The award-winning plaque is published, with picture, in Huszár-Procopius 1932 No. 1075, plate XXIV. He probably participated with a similar piece at the 1924 medal and plaque exhibition of the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts, see Cat. 1924, No. 1508. There are also copies in the Medal Collection of the Hungarian National Museum, see inv.nos. (without date) É.N.40.A/1905-1, (silver), É.N. 40.A/1905-2. For further information on the separate front and back, now in the collection of the Hungarian National Gallery (Inv.Nos. 56.47-P and 55.110-P), see Cat. 1993a No.33, with all previous literature. The silver copies of the plaque were sold for twenty, the bronze ones for ten koronás by the Society for Applied Arts.