fine Hungarian-Australian goldrush silver artist: Ernest Leviny

The Leviny house Buda, in Castlemaine

bought and renovated in 1863

Ernest Leviny (1818-1905) was a Hungarian and a citizen of the Austro Hungarian Empire. He moved from a small town to Budapest, to train as a silversmith and jeweller. In 1843 he lived in Paris developing his craft before moving to London where he set up a manufacturing jewellers and goldsmiths company with a Rus­s­ian jeweller. Although he lived in England while the Hungarian war for independence from Austria raged in 1848-49, his heart was with his compatriot revolutionaries. After the collapse of the revolut­ion­ary war and capitulation, Hungarian exiles began to arrive in Lon­don. Leviny, already an established and well-to-do businessman there, befriended them.

By 1852 reports of the alluvial gold being located in Victoria and NSW were circulating in London, and though his business in London was successful, Ernest quickly focused on the Australian goldfields. When Leviny sailed to Australia, he brought with him machinery for gold digging, as well as four hired labourers. He arrived in Melbourne and travelled directly to the Castle­maine goldfields to try his luck, but was not a happy miner. 

Buda's light filled front gallery 

He intended to stay in the Australian colonies only for a short term (3 years).  But the original idea of making quick money and returning to London disappeared. And like other European gold smiths who had originally sailed to dig in the gold fields and to return home, Leviny soon reverted to using his art skills on dec­orative objects. By 1854 he had established a jewellery and watch making business in Market Square Castlemaine and commenced investing in property and mining. Success followed when Leviny was joined by another Hungarian goldsmith and when he married his first wife Mary Issacs (1830-1860) in 1858. Tragically his wife and first baby were both dead within one year.

Apparently this very talented goldsmith completed many outstanding pieces of artistic gold and silver work and won many honours in colonial exhibitions, as well as at the London International Exhibition of 1862. But today his reput­ation rests a few major works e.g Inkwell (c1855) exhibited the 1862 London International Exhibition and Silver Standing Cup Centrepiece (c1859), now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Leviny showed a piece at The Exhibition of the Victoria Industrial Society which was written up in the Argus Newspaper, 27th Feb1858. The jewellery section, they said, was remarkable for the elegant gold work inkstand contributed by Mr. Ernest Leviny, of Castlemaine, the weight of which is 62 oz., and the value £700.

standing cup and cover, 1859
silver, 48cm high

National Gallery of Victoria

This standing cup and cover 1859 was one of Leviny's master­pieces. The cup presented an elaborate allegory of the prospering colony of Victoria. The personification of Victoria presided over an Australian landscape with gum-trees, kangaroos, emus, figures representing commerce, agriculture, mining and Victoria's Aboriginal inhabitants.

Have you ever heard of silver mounted emu eggs? It was unclear as to who among early Australian goldsmiths first designed and made them, but clearly the eggs were made from the mid 1850s. In fact they only became unfashionable when the fragile, green colour faded to brown with time.

When the Catalogue of the Victorian Exhibition 1861 mentioned Leviny’s silver ornaments and mounted emu eggs, they were called novelties in Australian silver. His cups and inkstands were usually supported on small silver tree ferns rising from octofoil bases embossed with emus, kangaroos and rocks or purely with floral decoration. His 1860 emu egg had an aboriginal on the cover, holding a spear.

In 1863, Ernest Leviny bought the one-acre property Delhi Villa in Hunter St Castlemaine – this elegant home was renamed Buda after his second home, Budapest (see photo). Within a year, in 1864, the VERY middle aged Ernest Leviny married the 20 year-old Bertha Hudson (1844-1923), and together they had ten children.

silver mounted emu egg goblet

presented at the Victorian Exhibition, 1861 

Buda historic house and garden has a rich legacy of the creative spirit of the Leviny Family, where several generations lived for over 118 years. It has a wide courtyard reminiscent of old Hungarian country houses and has the typically green Hungarian shutters on its windows. This mansion is now heritage-listed, under the care of the National Trust of Australia.

The two sons who survived into adulthood both married and had families of their own. But of the six daughters, only one daughter married and that was Ilma. The other five daughters were encouraged in all the decorative arts, many of which can still be seen at Buda. Once Ernest died in 1905, Bertha and all the girls redecorated the house in the more modern Arts and Crafts style. Dor­othy designed and painted friezes in the bedrooms, Federation style doorknobs and fingerplates appeared and embroideries filled the cushion covers and wall hangings. By 1910, the house looked more soft and less Victorian than it had under Ernest’s control.

Daughters Gertrude & Bertha were graduates of Castlemaine School of Mines. Daughters Dorothy, Kate and Hilda each exhibited a number of items in the First Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work in Melbourne, in 1907. And the poster for this exhibition was designed by Dorothy.

It was Hilda Leviny who retained Buda as a house and garden museum, until she sold the property to the Castlemaine Art Gall­ery in 1970. Two of her sisters, Mary and Kate, were also involved in the arts world through their involvement in establishing the Castlemaine Art Gallery in 1913, and assisting with the development of the gallery’s fine collection of prints in the late 1920s.

Standing cup and cover, 16 cm high,
National Gallery Victoria, 1859

Read Buda and the Leviny Family, by Lauretta Zilles, published 2011.