A Hungarian Collector of Islamic Art: Miklós Zsolnay’s Ceramics Collection from Fusṭāṭ

The Janus Pannonius Museum of Pécs houses a remarkable col­lection of Islamic ceramics, a collection which has rightly aroused the interest of researchers in the field. The collection was purchased during a trip to the Near East in 1887-1888 by Miklós Zsolnay, son of Vilmos Zsolnay, the founder in Pécs of a ceramics factory of European renown. After being stored in the Zsolnay family’s private museum for over sixty years, the material was moved to its current location following the factory’s nationalisation in 1948. The restoration and cataloguing of the collection have still not been completed. The present article aims to present this previously unpublished collection by listing the main types, thus opening the way for further research.