Rusovce Manor House and Its Neo-Gothic Rebuilding. New Findings from Artistic and Archival Materials
Rusovce Manor House and Its Neo-Gothic Rebuilding. New Findings from Artistic and Archival Materials

Summary/Abstract: The theme of the study is the manor house in Rusovce, near Bratislava, built in the neo-Gothic style, designed by a prominent Austrian architect working in noble circles in the monarchy, Franz Beer (1804 – 1861). Between 1841 and 1846, a radical reconstruction of the manor in the neo-Gothic style was carried out, commissioned by Count Emanuel Zichy Ferraris (1808-1877). The house was the cause of public interest shortly after its completion, as is shown in the first visual depictions. The collections of the Slovak National Gallery contain two works of art which relate to the period around 1850 and evidence the artistic depiction of this monument. Alongside a 1847 watercolour, containing a view of the building and made by an unknown author (but probably the architect Beer) we have a sketchbook of drawings by Count Viktor Odescalchi (1833 – 1900) from the years 1851 and 1852, where he recorded his visits of Rusovce. In terms of extant surviving archival documents the most recent addition to our knowledge of the Rusovce rebuilding is a building journal, found in the Zichy family archive in the Hungarian National Archive in Budapest. These new visual and archival documents interpretation are the subjects of this study.

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