An Unknown Mednyanszky Collection
The collection’s 25 pictures was most probably inherited by the last known owners, Derider Heumann Schwartz and Alicia Samek Bauer. They were of Hungarian origin living in Slovakia, but later immigrated first to Ecuador in 1947, and then moved on to Chile in 1956. Their estate was inherited by a friend under the condition that the pictures must be exhibited and subsequently sold in Hungary. The small collection that returned from South America was probably created between 1875 and 1895 in historic Upper Northern Hungary. This is suggested by the pictures’ perspective, the depicted persons and the unified material, which were all from the early years of Mednyánszky’s oeuvre. The earliest one is a male portrait (Old man with bird), which was probably painted in the time when Mednyánszky was studying in Munich, around 1873–74, while the collection’s latest pieces, including portraits, landscapes and an exceptionally beautiful vagabond picture, were al created in the mid-1890s. Every phase of Mednyánszky’s studies can be captured; his study years in Munich, the impact of Corot and Barbizon, as well as the mood painting of the Viennese Stimmung-impressionism. Perhaps this is one of the major advantages of this exhibition: it gives an overall insight into the early stages of his oeuvre, his early attempts that have been as yet rather unexplored.