Nativity donkey

Author: Daisy Hannah Foster
Photo: Marcell Szász

 When in 2015, I first held this little figure in my hands, I knew only two things about it:  that it was Italian and that it had come—alongside two cows, two oxen, and two carved wooden men—from the Fine Arts Museum in 1959.  Though it was clear, even at first glance, that these pieces were nativity figures, it was only this year that some notes regarding their acquisition were found:  both the accompanying figures, and the ‘little jackass statuette’ had been purchased ‘by Károly Pulszky from the Venetian antiquities dealer Delle Torre in 1896’.

Historically speaking, the staging or construction of nativity scenes—a long-standing practice in Italy even today—spread outward to the peninsula from the city of Naples, beginning with churches, followed by aristocratic settings, then finally, around the beginning of the 19^th century, in the homes of the common people.  A typical Neapolitan nativity featured an enormous constructed landscape in which the Holy Family, occupying front and centre, was surrounded by numerous miniatures of everyday characters, animals, and plants, all crafted to a high artistic standard.  Given that in general, figure sizes vary in order to impart a feeling of perspective, we may deduce that our donkey and his companions were either part of a very large nativity, or did not come from the same place.

That they are made of wood and were purchased in Venice could mean either of two things:  that they are examples of the carved wooden products of South Tyrol, a region relatively close to Venice, or that they came from somewhere else in Italy, dating to the period after nativity figures became common outside Naples.  The latter hypothesis is supported in that each has been carved in one piece, much like the latecomer popularised figures that followed the original Neapolitan ones, which were assembled from individual clay body parts.  At the same time, the donkey figurine is more detailed than the other pieces:  its halter and saddle are not carved, but added after the fact, as with the ‘clothed’ figures of the early Neapolitan nativities.  It may therefore be that the donkey and its companions originate from different times and places.

Károly Pulszky spent much of the period between 1893 and 1896 travelling Italy, where he purchased the works that would form the core material of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.  Acquisitions were made through his extensive network of connections, though in lieu of proper provenance, Pulszky noted only where and from whom each piece was obtained.  Later, he would even neglect to record the names of the dealers involved.  The year 1895 witnessed the organisation of the first Venetian Fine Arts Biennial, and it was among participants of this event that we first thought to seek the ‘Delle Torre’ from whom the donkey and its companions were originally purchased.  Though the search turned up nothing, we did find a dealer by the name of Moise Della Torre, who maintained contact with German dealer Wilhelm von Bode, an acquaintance of Pulszky’s from Florence.  It may be surmised, therefore, that the otherwise unlisted ‘jackass’ was actually purchased from Moise Della Torre and that ‘Delle Torre’ was merely a misspelling.

On the basis of this uncertain information, we can only guess as to the time and place the piece was acquired.  It was likely purchased in the early 1896 or before, as in February of that year Pulszky would lose not only his museum position, but also his mental health, making any Italian acquisition falling between then and his death three years later improbable.  It is certainly possible that during the Christmas season, he had seen multiple nativity setups in the area, and so purchased a few figures, including the donkey, early the following year.

Thus, what research has revealed on the figure to date amounts to this:  that it dates to the period in which the Hungarian high arts canon was first assembled; that it saw Venice during the period in which that city emerged as a hub for the arts; that it met Károly Pulszky, founding figure of Hungarian art museum collections; and that it stands as a memento of both the birth of Jesus, and the Italian nativity tradition.  Does its story end here, though?  Quite the contrary.  As its selection for the Museum of Ethnography’s artefact of the month reveals, in fact:  its life is far from over.