The name of Ferenc Hopp (1833–1919), a wealthy optician, patron of the arts, globe-trotter and art collector, has become known far and wide through the Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts established by the terms of his will in 1919 and kept up ever since. His career, remarkable in the present age, was not particularly unusual in the rapidly modernizing Hungary of the 19th century. But despite his fame, his multifarious activities are little known. For example, few are aware that he was a passionate photographer, and that, as the owner of the optical firm Calderoni and Co., he contributed substantially to the development of photography in Hungary. During his trips round the world he took a large number of photographs, building them up into a collection. In his will he left the overwhelming majority of these to the Hungarian Geographical Society. This part of his estate perished: along with the Society’s archive it was destroyed in 1944, by a direct hit from a bomb during the siege of Budapest.
Fortunately, as well as Ferenc Hopp’s art collection, photographs and documents have survived in the villa housing the Museum. These help acquaint us with Ferenc Hopp the photographer and successful businessman. In his last-mentioned capacity one of his principal activities was the distribution of photographic equipment and materials. As a photographer he did not rise above the average of the age, but because he travelled round the world five times, because he did not need to be sparing with photographic materials, and because as well as photographs he left behind descriptions, artefacts and his collection, he occupies a very special place in the history of Hungarian photography. In this volume we present Ferenc Hopp’s career and a selection of his surviving photographs, thus contributing to the history of Hungarian photography.