2011 Hertford College Magazine (Issue 91)

Hertford record: Obituaries
Party and was given permission to emigrate.
He reached Britain and found work as
a manservant. At the same time he studied
law and he was called to the Bar in 1953.
He joined the Foreign and Colonial Service
and was assigned as Crown counsel to
Ghana. On its independence in 1957 he became
adviser to the Ministry of Trade and
won the confidence of President Kwame
Nkrumah, who entrusted him with carrying
funds to the pro-independence movement
in East Africa. In 1958, under the
auspices of a trade mission, he was sent to
look for an Egyptian bride for the president.
Widowed in 1959, de Unger left Ghana
in 1962 and worked for the Italian oil company
ENI before returning to Britain where
he became a property developer. It was his
business success which allowed him to indulge
his increasing passion for collecting.
“ His first purchase gave him
several sleepless nights, but high
prices were the exception ”
His first purchase, of a 17th-century
Persian carpet for 1,200 guineas,
gave him several sleepless nights.
But high prices were the exception, and
de Unger recalled that often he literally
‘just picked the carpets off the floor’.
Gradually, with three layers of rugs covering
the floor of his two flats in Wimbledon,
he decided to concentrate on acquiring Persian
and Mughal miniature paintings, ceramics
and metalwork. His greatest love, however,
was for Fatimid carved rock crystals, and
his collection of them was exceeded only by
that in the treasury of San Marco in Venice.
De Unger preferred to buy his pieces
from ‘the source’ rather than from dealers
– a preference that earned him a reputation
as a bargain hunter. However, in
the open competition of the auction salerooms,
he was a formidable competitor.
His preferred method was to track down,
say, a lustre dish or a rare metal ewer in
the possession of a relative of a great collector.
Other objects were acquired directly
from the Middle East or further afield.
When necessary he could move swiftly.
On one occasion, after lunch with an expert
from the V&A who had told him that
two early 15th-century miniatures were
still in a private collection in Calcutta, he
booked his flight to India on the same day
and within the week the purchase was made.
On another occasion, in Damascus,
he bought a 14th-century Syrian bowl
in pristine condition from a man who
had just been eating yoghurt out of it.
While taking his sons on a sightseeing
trip in Venice, he noticed a 15th-century
Mamluk carpet lying outside the Scuola di
San Rocco. He was informed by the janitors,
who had no idea of the importance of
the piece, that once a year the carpet was laid
on the snow to clean it. De Unger informed
the authorities, with the result that the carpet
was better preserved and has been loaned
to at least one international exhibition.
He approached his collection in a rigorous
academic fashion with every item
being meticulously appraised and researched.
He believed in sharing his
knowledge widely; his home was always
open to scholars and students.
He was the co-founder of the Islamic Art
Circle and one of the principal lenders to the
1969 Islamic Ceramic Exhibition at the V&A.
Not forgetting his roots, he set up scholarships
for Hungarian academics to come to
England and was a generous patron to the
Budapest museums. In 1976 he proposed
the establishment of an Asia House
in London on the lines of the Asia Society
in New York. Several interested people
were brought together and a charitable
trust set up under his chairmanship.
Not all his dealings were successful.
90. HERTFORD COLLEGE MAGAZINE