Gosztonyi Ferenc - Király Erzsébet - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2002-2004. 24/9 (MNG Budapest, 2005)

NEW ACQUISITIONS - Károly Markó the elder: View of Rome, 1835 (Enikő Róka)

the time, Gábor Fejérváry. It was through him that Marko got into contact with Baron József Brüdern, who recognized the talent of the young man, and began to back him up. It was partly by way of his support that Marko went to Vienna and took up studies at the Historical and Landscape Department of the Academy, in the meanwhile, immersing himself in the writings of Winckelmann and Mengs and antique mythology. It was in the late 1820s that he produced one of his early masterpieces, Visegrád. In the autumn 1832, helped along by a Viennese banker, he travelled to Italy, and after short sojourns in Venice, Bologna and Florence, he went on to Rome. He worked ceaselessly, as witnessed to by his many paintings of the outskirts of Rome and the Tivoli countryside, all of which are suggestive of immediate experience. In Italy, he became acquainted with Joseph Anton Koch and the Danish sculptor, Thorvaldsen. It was at this time that the characteristic composition of his landscapes took shape: architectural or natural elements being placed on the two sides of his pictorial spaces, with Staffage figures enlivening the landscapes in the centre - these latter drawing on 17th-century, classical landscape painting, and being relatable mostly to the influence of Claude Lorrain. He collected motifs in nature, and then composed them into a unity in his studio. In 1838, contracting malaria, he was forced to move from Rome. He first went to San Giuliano near Pisa, and had a successful exhibition in Florence, earning him the friendship of Leopold II Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1843, he moved to Florence, where he was appointed to teach at the Academy. In the meantime, he regularly sent his work home for exhibitions. Due to his failing health, he was forced to withdraw, and, through the help of a pupil of his, he hired Villa Appeggi (Villa Lampeggi today) near Florence in the Tuscan hills in 1848. Apart from a short visit to Hungary in 1853, he would never leave this until his death in 1860. His grave stands the cemetery of Antella nearby. Several of his works are held in Italian public collections, his self-portrait being in the Uffizi. View of Rome manifests the mature style of the Italian period. The basic element of the composition is the rocky gorge on the left, from the bottom of which a road winds into the distance, where the cupola of St Peter's Cathedral unfolds above the trees. The slanting of the rocky wall is counterbalanced by the leafage of a tree, creating a strictly enclosed composition, which directs the gaze of the viewer to the distant sight of the Eternal City. The front has some of the well-known, characteristic Staffage figures of Markó's oeuvre. Known from the watercolour entitled Italian Women at the Well, a bonneted Italian woman in traditional dress is seated resting on the right, with a Franciscan friar begging in front of her. The figure of the monk is a everyday phenomenon of the sacrificial world of 'Urbe', the historical backdrop of St Peter's Károly Marko the elder: View of Rome, 1835. Gouache on cardboard, 270x228 mm, signed lower right: C. M Róma 1835. Inv.: 2002.5 Presented by Mátyás Knausz in 2002 Cathedral: past and present are closely knit together. They are connected by the road as a symbol of human life. With her back to the viewer, the figure of the woman carrying a basket on her head is a recurrent motif in Marko paintings of the 1830s. (Italian Hilly Landscape with Tivoli in the Background, 1836; Italian Landscape with Viaduct and Rainbow, 1838.) The provenance of the work would suit the plot of thriller. In the 1940s, it belonged to the Fővárosi Képtár (Budapest Municipal Gallery), from where it was mysteriously removed in the wake of the war. In 1969, it turned up in a private collection, and the Hungarian National Gallery, as one of the legal successors of the collection of the Fővárosi Képtár, attempted to sue the owner for its return. But it lost the 1971-72 trial, and was forced to cancel it from its registry. Though a work of art under protection, it remained in private ownership, and, after two changes in proprietorship, it was acquired by its last owner in 1987. Its earlier museum display also proves that it is a significant piece in the Markó oeuvre, well-deserving a place in a public collection. It was displayed at the exhibitions Alia ricerca del colore e della luce. Pittori ungheresi 1832-1914 at the Pitti Palace in Florence and Pittori ungheresi in Italia 1800—1900 at the Accademia d'Ungheria in Rome (2002). S3