Jan Onghers tézislapterve. Kísérlet egy dicsőítő allegória újabb meghatározására
Authors: Vajda László 
Published: April 2010

The topic of analysis is a high-quality piece in the little-known oeuvre of the Netherland artist Jan Onghers (1656–1735). The pen drawing of excellent composition and linearity was fundamentally dictated by Franciscan themes based on Biblical and theological parallels, around 1699–1700. At first sight, the Peace of Karlóca concluded with celestial help is perpetuated by it, the triumphal procession emphasizing the victory of the Holy League and the merits of the emperor and the pope, and also indicating the major events of the liberation of Hungary. The iconographic program of the drawing is hard to decipher for want of sufficient captions; its earlier brief interpretations resigned from any attempt to do so. There was hesitation in defining the genre and some details were misinterpreted totally. It was therefore expedient to put it to thorough examination. As the sign indicates, the sheet was made in Prague where Onghers spent most of his life. It is not impossible that the precedents are to be found in Lotharingian and French court art and among the works of another Prague-based artist, Karel Škréta. On the basis of some details drawn in reverse and the examination of the material it is almost certain that the sheet is the preliminary drawing for an engraving, and the identification of the few quotation fragments confirms that it was a university thesis sheet that is latent at present or was never completed. Since the thesis sheets were normally designed by artists of the locality of the university (or college), the artist was probably commissioned by a student and professor of Prague university. Among the thesis sheets of students taking examinations in the faculty of arts two sheets by Onghers survive: no. 387 from 1702 (engraved by Augustinus Neurautter) and no. 181 from 1705 (engraver: F. v. Pütt). The former is not onlycloser to the studied sheet in time but it also displays similar details. Its composition was inspired by Skreta's philosophical thesis sheet of 1672 for which he borrowed some allegorical female figures and saints from his own earlier works. Its theme is presumably the system of virtues and vices in the second part (Secunda Secundae) of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae as well as the Immaculata Conceptio defended by Duns Scotus. The patron was probably Leopold I or his son Joseph I sitting by his side in the most accentuated section of the triumphal procession. In view of the theme, it was probably at some theological faculty (?) in the course of which a student belonging to the Capuchins propounded the tenets harmonizing the Tomist and Scotist views and advocating Mary's exemption from the original sin. For the time being, the place of the examination, the identity and origin of the student cannot be determined. The known archival sources suggest that Prague university was beyond the scope of the peregrinations of Hungarian friars at that time. Because of the Hungarian implications of the sheet, the student should be searched among 17th century Hungarians studying in the Austrian province of the Jesuit order but in the surviving court lists there is only one student taking an exam under the emperor's patronage (“sub auspiciis imperatoris”). His thesis sheet does not survive and no detail of the pen drawing can be related to his coat of arms. Nothing proves the Hungarian origin of the candidate, and besides, it is also presumable that it is not a singular sheet on which usually the figure of the candidate and his coat of arms (if any) were also depicted but an unfilled form usable several times, which became increasingly fashionable from the turn of the century.