East Wall of the Kisvárda Great Synagogue - Architectural Drawing - Hungary, 1901

East Wall of the Kisvárda Great Synagogue - Architectural Drawing - Hungary, 1901
East wall of the great synagogue in Kisvárda (Kleinwardein), Hungary, 1901.
Watercolor on canvas, mounted on paper. Signed and dated. Legend (in Hungarian) on the card backing the drawing.
The drawing presents the east wall of the Kisvárda great synagogue, with an elaborate Torah ark surmounted by a stained glass rose window.
The Jewish community of Kisvárda, a town in north-east Hungary, was documented already in the 1730s. The community was large in relation to the town, and flourished from a financial viewpoint. Its members were merchants, industrialists and farmers; the community managed numerous institutions, including a bank and a Jewish hospital. Prior to WWII, the Jews made up about a third of the town's population. The magnificent and large synagogue, whose east wall is depicted in this drawing, and which still stands today, was built in 1901. The building was designed by Ferenc Szabolcsi (Grósz). The rose window on the east wall of the structure, which serves nowadays as a museum, is slightly different from the one depicted in the drawing. Most of the Kisvárda Jewish community perished in the Holocaust.
34X23 cm. Mounted on 41.5X29 cm card. Good condition. Stains.