Hungary gifts the child armour of Poland’s former king, Sigismund II Augustus, to the Polish – PHOTO GALLERY

The Union of Lublin by Jan Matejko Source: Wikimedia Commons / Maciej Szczepańczyk

The Hungarian government has decided: the Hungarian National Museum will gift the child armour of Sigismund II Augustus to the Polish for free. The armour was previously believed to have belonged to Louis II of Hungary.

Telex has noticed that the Hungarian Official Gazette of December 24^th wrote the following: The ownership of the artefact titled the ‘child armour of the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus’ should be transferred to the Republic of Poland free of charge. The reason why Hungary gives this valuable artefact, which is in the main inventory of the Hungarian National Museum, to Poland is because of the 1992 Convention on Cultural and Scientific Cooperation between Hungary and Poland.

Sigismund II Augustus Portrait Portré — Portrait of Sigismund Augustus by Peter Danckerts de Rij Source: Wikimedia Commons / grafik.rp.pl

According to Népszava, Sigismund II Augustus was not only a King of Poland but also a Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Lithuanian and Latvian Lectorate of the Institute of Slavic and Baltic Philology of the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, Budapest, commemorated the 500th anniversary of the birth of the last ruler of the Jagiellonian dynasty on its Facebook page in September this year.

Litvánia nyomai Magyarországon #LitvánianyomaiMagyarországon🇭🇺 Idén emlékeznek meg Litvániában Zsigmond Ágost…
Posted by ELTE BTK Szláv és Balti Filológiai Intézet – Litván és Lett lektorátus on Monday, September 28, 2020

“The Hungarian National Museum preserves the child armour of Sigismund II Augustus, which was gifted by the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I, to the future husband of his daughter, Elizabeth Habsburg, in 1533. The armour was made by Jörg Seusenhofer, the royal armoursmith in Innsbruck,” they wrote.

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Népszava wrote about the armour almost a year ago; for a long time, it was believed that the armour belonged to Louis II of Hungary. The mistake was highlighted by a study published in the late ‘30s, by Bruno Thomas:

“The childhood armour of Louis II actually belonged to Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland. Unfortunately, during the time of Maria Theresa, the two were simply mixed up at the Imperial Armory in Vienna. As early as the ‘70s, this was acknowledged by the Hungarian literature; in fact, since 1996, the armour has been correctly labelled in the permanent exhibition of the National Museum.”

: Child armour of Sigismund Augustus Source: Wikimedia Commons / Zdzisław Żygulski

: Sigismund’s armour Source: Wikimedia Commons / LSH 78320

: Armour of King Sigismund Augustus of Poland Source: Wikimedia Commons / BurgererSF

: Sigismund August’s armor set for man and horse Source: Wikimedia Commons / LSH 17497

The article on the large-scale exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum in 1933 shed light on how the armour ended up in Hungary in the first place:

“Article 177 of the Dictate ordered on Hungary and Article 196 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain, signed by the Austrians, ordered that Austria was to give any »artefacts falling within the concept of Hungarian intellectual property« from their former court collections.”

Tombof Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus Sírhely — Tombstone of Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus in the Sigismund Chapel of the Royal Wawel Cathedral Source: Wikimedia Commons / Poznaniak

According to Telex, the armour could be extremely valuable. They brought a northern Italian armour of an unknown man from the early 1600s as an example. It was preserved in its original condition and was sold for more than £1 million at Sotheby’s auction.