Interior photograph – Study of György Ráth

According to early twentieth-century newspapers, two Rembrandt paintings hung in the study, and this information appeared in the museum’s catalog of 1906 too. To this day, however, these paintings have not been identified—presumably the works were later listed and catalogued under the name of a different artist.
The floors and walls of the villa were covered in Oriental carpets. A seventeenth-century Ottoman–Turkish six-column prayer rug hung above the door of the study.
Next to the entrance to the study was a late eighteenth-century Italian chest of drawers upon which stood a likewise eighteenth-century German carved wooden clock, painted white and partially gilt. The metal face of the clock was adorned with military decorations. Above the chest hung a so-called verdure tapestry (named for its exclusively vegetal decoration).
According to the contemporary inventory of objects in the György Ráth collection, a fireproof cabinet was also located in the study. Ráth had purchased it from one of the best-known antique dealers, Joseph Egger, at the end of the nineteenth century. He probably kept valuables and important documents in it. The small cabinet, dating to c. 1700, had several drawers decorated with standing human figures, griffins and floral ornaments in niches.