Pulpit

It consists of two parts. The so called "basket" is put on a stepped sloping mounding with volutes and garlands on each sides as ornaments. In the field among them is a flat carved flower-basket decoration. On the front side of the flaring "basket" of the pulpit are on each side piers that end in volutes, with scroll decoration. The lower part is closed by a richly profiled moulding with flat carved flower decoration. In the field surrounded by the piers and mouldings there is a relief in rococo cartouche, fastened with pegs, with a scene from the life of St. Paul the hermit and St. Anthony. In the longitudinal axis there is a leafy tree in blossom. Before it two bearded hermits are sitting, wearing hoods. Both of them have open books in their laps, and seeming dispute about them. In the hand of the left side figure is a stick. In the background, behind the tree, there is a hut, through whose open window and door plain dishes are to be seen. Before the hut on the left there is a hearth, and on the pot-hanger is a pot with food cooking in it. On the right is a barrel under a simple plank- roof with vegetables on the ground in front of it. There is a long-standing cult of these two saints in Hungary, and the Order of the Hermits of St. Paul considered them as spiritual ancestors. In addition, St. Anthony was the highly respected patron saint of the sick and of cattle. The pulpit used to stand in the refectory of the monastery of the order of St. Paul, in Tuskevar. The date of its making can be told only approximately and the master cannot be identified exactly. The first expert to write about the work — Mrs. Barany-Oberschall, on the basic of the work done by Ern6 Molnar — simply describes it and dates it to around 1760. A year later, in 1935, the study of Ern6 Molnar on the cabinets of the sacristy of the Paulite church of Tuskevar, which were at that time to be found in Somlovasarhely, was published. According to Molnar, the sources indicate that the cabinets were made between 1754—1761, and the master was simply indentified as the cabinet-maker Master John (Janos). The author raised the question of whether all the decorations had been carved by this master. Later research should determine this, but the great number of the carvings and the apparently short time needed to make them seem to be contradictory. The Molnar's research was completed with a note from the annals of the order of St. Paul in Zirc form the year 1754, published by Maria Agghazy. According to these the cabinets of the sacristy and the stalls were made by frater conversus Janos Hingeller, and they were ready in 1754. In 1936 Ern6 Molnar differentiates further his views from those of Agghazy. He dates the furniture of the refectory to the period between 1756—1761 and about the identity of the master he writes the following: "Were the carvings of the refectory also made by master John? It is not clear from the annals. Taking into consideration that the works for the church had been made in 1754, but Friar John got 52 forints from the monastery in 1758, the answer should be "yes". Nevertheless the stylistic differences suggest something different: the carvings seem to be divided into two groups — the church and refectory carvings." In her monograph published in 1959, Maria Agghazy writes about the pulpit as the work of the Paulites of Tuskevar. In the study published in 1973, Bela Gyeressy mentions it as "a typical relief of Hingeller", but he dates the activity of the master in Tuskevar conditionally form 1751 only. In the 1981 study, Istvan Molnar attributes the work to Hingeller, on the basis of Gyeressy.