It has been 100 years since world traveler Ferenc Hopp died and left his home on Andrássy Avenue and his art collection of 4,000 pieces on the Hungarian state, on the condition that a museum was opened in its place. Ferenc Hopp was an optician, the well-respected owner of the renowned "Calderoni and Tsa" optical and teaching tool manufacturing company. He had spent his wealth on business trips, traveled around the world five times. He reached India, China, Japan, and reported on his experiences at the meetings of the Hungarian Geographical Society and built a small collection of items he bought on his journeys, which he left (together with his home) for the state. Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts remembers this anniversary, and the 150th anniversary of Hungarian Asia research with a unique exhibition.

The new exhibition titled 'Made in Asia. The Centenary of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts' running for a full year and displays the best pieces of the collection of the hundred-year-old Hopp Museum. It shows the great periods of the museum’s history. The more than 500 artefacts – including temporarily displayed pieces – are arranged according to the most important periods in the museum’s history. The display allows an insight into how the most representative items and groups of objects entered the collection. They also remember the prominent figures of the museum’s history: directors and staff members who played a key role in maintaining the operation of the museum and in shaping its collecting activity in those periods in the twentieth century that were fraught with tragedies in Hungary (and across the world).

Besides the centennial exhibition, there are more surprises to come. The publication of a gap-filling reference book about the history of the Hopp Museum’s collections and the descriptions of its most prominent artefacts is closely linked to the jubilee year. The near future will also see the publication of the special jubilee edition of their Portable Museum Education Library, which will be devoted to the life and work of Ferenc Hopp, while a bilingual volume presenting the history of the Hopp Villa and its garden and illustrated with archival photographs will come out in the autumn.

Exhibition is open: 20 June 2019 – 30 August 2020

More information: https://hoppmuseum.hu/informacio_en