From the Cellar to the Museum

Medals Awarded to Péter Matuska, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, in the Medal Collection

Abstract

In 1962, the Department of Coins and Medals of the Hungarian National Museum was enriched by phaleristic items found the cellar of a house in Buda. Lajos Huszár, the museologist who handled the case, reckoned that the items belonged to Dr. Péter Matuska, a former ambassador and deputy minister.
Matuska was born in Budapest in 1885. After finishing his studies at university, he spent decades in Hungarian foreign affairs, first as an agent in Prague and Madrid, then as an ambassador in Warsaw, Sofia, and, during the Second World War, in Stockholm. Throughout his career, he was the recipient of significant Hungarian and foreign orders and distinctions in practically every position he held. After the war, he moved to France, where he passed away in 1956.
The present study intends to outline Péter Matuska’s career, which has been largely overlooked by Hungarian historians and scholarship, through a detailed discussion of the phaleristic material discovered in Buda.