On Monday, 22 priceless objects of art arrived at the museum for the exhibition, which will open on December 13. Many of the objects have never before been seen in Hungary.
The exhibition will reunite, if only for a few months, two parts of the Esterházy treasure which were separated in 1919 and 1920, with one part remaining in Hungary and the other transferred to Castle Forchtenstein, said museum director Imre Takács.
Among the 131-piece collection are six large paintings from Austria which portray members of the Esterházy family, as well as 16 examples of finely crafted gold.
At a press conference on Tuesday, museum officials presented an extraordinary portrait of the 15-year-old Pál Esterházy and the nine-year-old Orsolya Esterházy painted in 1652.
The Museum of Applied Arts? restoration experts unpacked a decorative gold and silver figure of Bacchus in a mechanical chariot. They also showed a brilliant 17th-century ostrich centerpiece which once graced the table of Pál Esterházy.
The exhibition will include jewellery, ornamental weapons and fine fabrics as well. Most of the works were made in the 16th and 17th centuries and demonstrate the skills of the best craftsmen at the time.
András Szilágyi, the exhibition?s curator, said the works have been insured for hundreds of thousands of euros.
