Viczay, Mihály (1721–1787 and 1756/7–1831)
By Hadrien J. Rambach
Portrait of Mihály Viczay de Loós et Hédevár (1757-1831) by Zsigmond Pollák, from Vasárnapi Ujság, issue 28 (1884), p. 437.
This is an abstract of the article “Notes on the Wiczay / Viczay collection of Greek and Roman coins”, by Hadrien Rambach, published in Bulletin du Cercle d’Études Numismatiques, vol. 61.3 (September-December 2024), pp. 30-33.
Scholarly coin-descriptions occasionally mention the Wiczay collection of Greek and Roman coins. This cabinet which contained numerous pieces, amongst which a number of great rarities, is principally known thanks to a catalogue published by Felice Caronni: Musei Hedervarii in Hungaria numos antiquos Graecos et Latinos descripsit anecdotos vel parrum cognitos etiam cupresi tabulis incidi curavit, Vienna 1814, in 2 in-quarto volumes. There had been previously a catalogue co-written by Josef Khell von Khellburg and Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, but it remained unpublished and is now lost.
Carl Wilhelm Becker (1772-1830), silver medal with the portrait of Mihály Viczay (1756/7-1831), 29mm, 7.48 grams. Ref: Durand 1865, p. 121, no 1 (silver-gilt 24mm). Ex Künker, auction 242, 20 November 2013, lot 3698.
This name refers in fact to two distinct collectors, a father and a son of same name: count Mihály Viczay (1721-1787) and count Mihály Viczay (1756/7-1831).
By 17 November 1830, the Wiczay cabinet contained some 11,992 Greek coins and 13,377 Roman ones. Their collection was sold en-bloc in 1835 to Parisian dealer Charles Louis Rollin who dispersed the coins privately, among collectors, the Vienna museum and the Paris coin cabinet.
Macrianus, AD 260-261. Aureus, 4.68 grams. Paris, BnF, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. FG 1390. Publ.: Caronni 1814, p. 91, no 509, pl. I-16 = Longpérier 1836, no. 92 = Cohen 1892, p. 5, no 10 = RIC 1962, p. 580, no. 2 = Göbl 2000, no 1738a = Busche & Myzgin 2020, p. 108. Photo © Vincent Drost, BnF.
Despite the importance of many rarities on their trays, such as an aureus of Macrianus known today in only 6 examples, it is noteworthy that the son acquired a number of fakes of Greek coins by Caprara (active in Smyrna and Syros c. 1822-1832), notably a gold owl of Athens; and also at-least a false aureus of Maximian Herculius (AD 286-305) which was then bought by the Paris museum! That aureus had been acquired from the (now) well-known forger Carl Wilhelm Becker (1772-1830), from whom Wiczay also commissioned several portrait-medals.
Bibliography
- Fritz Mitthof, Die Analyse eines siebenbürgischen Schatzfundes durch Abbé Eder im Jahr 1803: Goldstatere der bosporanischen Herrscher Pharnakes II. und Asandros in Vergesellschaftung mit solchen des Lysimachos-Typs, in B. Woytek and D. Williams (eds.), Ars critica numaria. Joseph Eckhel (1737-1798) and the Transformation of Ancient Numismatics, Vienna, 2022, pp. 211-244
- Hadrien Rambach, «Notes on the Wiczay / Viczay collection of Greek and Roman coins», in Bulletin du Cercle d’Études Numismatiques, vol. 61.3 (September-December 2024), pp. 30-33
