Studio of Mihály Munkácsy

The artist's account book, no. 15

Morris K. Jessup, New York (as of 1880)

With Knoedler & Co, Ltd., 15 October 1894 (probably)

From whom acquired by Gross & van Gigch, Milwaukee, 17 November 1894 (probably)

Leslie Kuthy

With Kurt E. Schon, Ltd., New Orleans, Louisiana 

From whom acquired by the previous owner

Thence by descent to the present owner

Dezsö Malonyay, Mihály Munkácsy, vol. II, Budapest 1907, no. 17L

Lajos Végvári, Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen Mihály Munkácsys, Budapest 1959, p. 53, no. 505 (variation on no. 289, as Der Nachmittagstee)

This ambitious composition dates from the height of Mihály Munkácsy’s international career, when his Paris studio was operating on a grand scale to meet demand from both European and American clientele.

First published by Lajos Végvári in his 1958 catalogue raisonné (no. 505, reproduced), the painting was recorded as a studio production created under Munkácsy’s direct supervision. Végvári noted that while parts of the composition were likely executed by students, the elegant female figure at right was probably painted by Munkácsy himself.

Végvári cites the present work as a characteristic example of the carefully targeted interventions that distinguished major canvases produced in Munkácsy’s Paris atelier in the early 1880s, the period to which Végvári dates the present composition, based on the artist’s account books.

Following the start of Munkácsy’s ten year contract with the Parisian dealer Sedelmeyer in 1878, such sophisticated drawing-room interiors became highly fashionable among Paris’s bourgeoisie as well as the rapidly expanding American elite, who saw their own aspirations reflected in the elegance and ease of these domestic scenes.

Mihály Munkácsy was the pre-eminent Hungarian painter of the 19th-Century. His remarkable versatility spanned early, gritty peasant scenes, large-scale biblical and historical masterpieces, and exquisitely crafted genre paintings. His talents were recognized early.

In 1866, he entered the Düsseldorf Academy, where he was profoundly influenced by the German painter Ludwig Knaus. From Knaus, he not only learned refined draughtsmanship, structure, and form, but also adopted the technique of applying a bitumenized base to his canvases. Painting directly onto a black ground and then building up layers of color produced a striking interplay of dark and light. This dramatic technique is a true hallmark of Munkácsy’s style and is evident in The Afternoon Tea.