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The busts representing Greek and Roman poets may once have been part of the furnishings of a library. In the age of Enlightenment when new cultural ideals were emerging, the library and study became ever more important to the way of life followed by the Hungarian aristocracy. Regarded as a sort of "intellectual ancestral gallery" these busts played an important role in the design of these rooms. They indicated the particular interests of the owner. Religious Orders and schools usually embellished their libraries with reliefs or a series of busts representing famous theologians. In secular circles, where a classical education was taken for granted at that time, busts of the ancients were in vogue.
There is a series of six busts of this type in the Hungarian National Gallery. The sculptor may have copied the sharply defined, somewhat exaggerated, even caricatured profiles from reliefs on medals or plaquettes. He was a highly skilled master with a unique experience in woodcarving and may have made, single-handed, the complete set of book-cases together with the group of statues.
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