The hall named after Count Ferenc Széchényi, founder of the Hungarian National Museum in 1802, was established on the initiative of Mrs. János Bohus née Antónia Szőgyén in 1859, who appealed to Hungarian women to raise funds for the construction of a hall in memory of Ferenc Széchényi. The 27,579 forints collected through the county and city ladies' committees were given to the director Ferenc Kubinyi for the construction of a representative hall in memory of Ferenc Széchényi.
The furniture of the Széchényi Hall was designed by Miklós Ybl, and manufactured of Slavonian oak by József Szabó, master carpenter from Buda. The carvings, richly decorated with Renaissance motifs, including caryatid pilasters with Tuscan chapters, interlaced vine and leafy borders and volute consoles, provide the furniture a particularly ornate appearance. The three windowless walls of the room are lined with glass-fronted bookcases with sliding doors extending up to the main parapet, with a doorway in the centre of each wall. A representative portrait of the founder, Ferenc Széchényi, already housed in the Picture Gallery of the National Museum, was inserted into the ornately carved wood paneling between the two windows of the wall facing the Museum Boulevard.
The architectural design of the Széchényi Hall included a new ceiling decoration in the 1860s. The earlier ornamental painting was replaced by a heraldic scheme, where the series of the Hungarian and county coats of arms appear. The Hungarian coat of arms with Árpád-stripes and the double cross, surmounted by the Holy Crown, is placed in the centre of the pale blue backgrounded and gold starred ceiling among laurel and oak branches. Around it, towards the four corners the coats of arms of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia and Transylvania are painted. On the 60 shields of arms running along the cornice – 15-15 on each side – are the arms of 53 counties, appropriate for the period, and those of 4 counties of Partium, Rijeka and the Hajdú district, as well as the united arms of Pest-Buda, anticipating the unification of the capital in 1873. The theme not only reaffirmed the fact that the National Museum, an estate-based institution from its foundation, was accountable to the Hungarian Parliament through the Museum Fund, but also commemorated that the construction of the hall was facilitated by the funds raised by women's associations of the counties as a civic initiative.
The completed hall was opened on May 7, 1865 with a speech by director general Ágoston Kubinyi, who expressed his gratitude to Mrs. Bohus and the women's associations for their generous donations. In the newly completed hall, which was in the care of the National Széchényi Library until its move to the Buda Castle in 1985, the library's old Hungarian manuscripts were placed first. Since then, it has become one of the National Museum's most highly esteemed ceremonial spaces, used for exhibitions, ceremonies, conferences and book launches.
Count Ferenc Széchényi, founder of the Hungarian National Museum / Oil painting by Johann Ender, 1823
The painting was commissioned for the museum by the founder's sons, István Széchenyi and his brothers Lajos and Pál, after their father's death, from the renowned Viennese painter Johann Ender for 300 gold florins. This painting was the first to be created specifically for the National Museum after its foundation. Ender had a long association with the Széchényi family, having painted portraits of many of their members, and an altarpiece was also commissioned from him for the church in Nagycenk, and he accompanied István on his long journey to the East in 1818. Painted in 1823, during Ender's stay in Rome, the picture was first exhibited in Vienna to great acclaim. Ferenc Kazinczy also saw the portrait and wrote about it with some irony in his letter to Izidor Guzmics: "The picture is enthusiastically conceived, and very correctly and beautifully executed, and shows the great, noble-minded mortal, the eternal pride of the nation; but it is piled with the attributes of the sciences. The hero, reviving, could not exit from among the terrible multitude of these things." The picture is indeed very rich in visual references with a meaningful content, thanks to István Széchenyi, who compiled the programme of the depiction to commemorate his father for promoting the advancement of national culture with his donation.
In the Renaissance architectural setting, the painter evokes the marble-columned space of an ideal library, with a view of the Danube and the Buda Castle through a loggia curving to the right. At the centre is the founder, an educated aristocrat who was at the forefront of both public life and scientific patronage. He is dressed in the ceremonial attire of the Order of the Golden Fleece, among the knights of which he was invited in 1808 by Francis I. In his right hand he holds a volume containing the 1807 Parliamentary Articles, with the open page of Act XXIV, in which the estates take under their protection the donation of his collection for the National Museum. Below, on the open scroll of paper, is the text of the founding charter of 1802. The sphinxes supporting the round marble table are, as we know from the correspondence between Széchenyi and Ender, symbols of wisdom. On the table, next to the bust of the monarch, are objects indicative of the antiquarian and collector: a writing pen and inkstand, a small statue of Athena, antique ceramics, coins, cameos and rings. In front of the table in the foreground are an engraving folder, a roll of paper and a book, all of which are indicative of his collections, while on the other side are an antique vase, a globe and a painter's palette. The palette may also suggest that Széchényi had been elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In the background, in a frieze above the arch of the loggia, a relief of the seven muses holds the family coat of arms. The visual richness of the depiction evolved gradually, which is clearly visible in the sketch preserved in Nagycenk, where the setting was more suggestive of a library and a famous collection of books.