Case Study Into an Interesting Hungarian Trompe L'Oeil Etch (Honours Research part 2 of 3)

Balthasar Friedrich Lutz, Az 1716-os év eseményei ("Régi Ritka" website of the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár)   

Background

As mentioned in my first blog post, my research is about finding more examples of Trompe L’Oeil books. The most important part of my research is the methodology: how do I conduct good research in an area as niche as Trompe L’Oeil books, and what constitutes good results? I will dive deeper into these questions in the following blog post. In this blog post, I will do a case study of an engraving that is not a Trompe L’Oeil book, but is a good example of Trompe L’Oeil in itself, and it has some other interesting characteristics that make it worth examining. I was looking for Trompe L’Oeil book examples, and Erika Andrási of the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (The Hungarian National Library, OSZK), mentioned this engraving as being possibly useful to my research. Even though it is not a book, it is nevertheless still an interesting example of Trompe L’Oeil, because of what it depicts and because it is about Hungary, while most known examples are from Western Europe. This blog post is a showcase of how I believe research into a particular source could be attempted, while also mentioning the interesting aspects of Lutz’s engraving called “Az 1716-os év eseményei”. 

What it depicts

The title of the engraving is “Az 1716-os év eseményei”, which translates to: ‘the events of the year 1716’. In the Middle Ages, Hungary was a big kingdom that stretched from the coasts of modern Croatia in the west to modern day Belgrade in the east, and included large parts of modern day Romania, Slovakia and Serbia. This status quo was interrupted when the Ottomans attacked, and the country got divided into three parts: a Turkish controlled part, an Austrian controlled part, and a more or less independent, Hungarian controlled part. This region is often credited as keeping Hungarian identity alive. It roughly coincides with the modern day area known as Transylvania, which was given to Romania after the First World War, something which many Hungarians still painfully remember. In 1716, which this source depicts, this division into three parts was already lifted. The Turkish army was defeated, and the formerly Turkish controlled part was added to the Austrian controlled part. Transylvania stayed independent and was not added to the other parts until later. Turkish control of the region ended in 1699, thus In 1716 the war against the Ottomans was still a hot topic. This is why Turkish soldiers, multiple important figures and important battles of the time are depicted, as well as a map of the Turkish ruled Hungarian territory. In the centre of the engraving, the Habsburg king of Hungary, Charles VI of the Holy Roman Empire is depicted, which means this is likely a political pamphlet that favours the Habsburg monarchy. This engraving was likely made to commemorate the victory over the Ottomans, and it is made by a German, Balthasar Friedrich Lutz. Austrians were not liked by Hungarians, because even though they helped defeat the Ottomans, they occupied Hungary afterwards, and implemented measures that were not well-received. This relationship only soured in the following century. This engraving would probably not have been popular among many Hungarians. 

Images used

Additionally, it is interesting to think about what kind of images are used by Lutz on this engraving. The engraving creates the illusion of 3-dimensional scraps of paper that lie on a flat surface. However, are the images on the scraps made by Lutz himself, or did he use images from other sources? For example, the images of Charles VI in the centre seem to be original images made by Lutz, although they are probably influenced by known paintings of the king. Additionally, one of the images on the engraving is about the Siege of Corfu, and this seems to be an original as well, influenced by other known sources. It is probable that the images used on the engraving are all original, albeit inspired by other sources. This makes this Trompe L’Oeil different from a collage since collages generally feature images drawn from other sources and reused in a new piece of art. The name for this particular kind of Trompe L’Oeil is a Medley. 

Author

The artist is Balthasar Friedrich Lutz, a German engraver from Augsburg. There is not much information known about him, but he likely lived from  1690 to 1726. He made multiple engravings, of which this one is an outlier, because of the Trompe L’Oeil and because of its political background. It is likely that Lutz got hired by someone from the Habsburg court to make this engraving, and a Trompe L’Oeil medley seemed to be the most interesting form. Perhaps this form was chosen to grab the interest of the general public the most efficiently, since it was somewhat of a propaganda piece. It certainly looks more interesting than a normal engraving.  

Compared to other Trompe L’Oeil works

It looks as if there are different scraps of paper laid out on the engraving, but of course these are not real scraps of paper but merely optical illusions. This is generally the case with Medleys, but according to the source website, “Régi Ritka” (meaning old and rare things, a website of the OSZK), one of the scraps of paper that depicts a map is glued to the engraving. It is interesting to consider why this was done. It could be theorised that this image was added at a later date. However, there is one problem: the site does not elaborate which of two images featuring a map it is, but both images are also drawn over, meaning that they could not have been added at a later date. Why this was done is up to speculation, but interesting nevertheless. 

Relevance for my research

This engraving is relevant for my research because it is an example of a result of my research that is very interesting, although as mentioned it is not specifically a book that I was searching for. However, this source can be used to perhaps track down Trompe L’Oeil books, since Cryn van Zuyderhoudt, a Dutch artist who made Trompe L’Oeil books, also made Medleys like this source sometimes. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, “Az 1716-os év eseményei” by Balthasar Lutz depicts an important part of Hungarian and Austrian history. Some interesting things about this source are the fact that the images featured on the artwork are probably all drawn by Lutz himself, that the artwork had a political role and that it is not entirely a ‘true’ Trompe L’Oeil, since one of the images used is physically glued to it. It is an interesting source to analyse: it is quite unique in its approach.