Attributed to László Báró Mednyánszky

László Mednyánszky

Wanderer

Oil on canvas, mounted on cardboard

Size of the picture without frame: 22.5x31 cm

Signal to the left below

" A significant part of the critics at the turn of the century, echoing the opinion of the majority of the audience, made it very difficult to accept his so-called Tramp pictures: "having finished with the people, let's look for the monsters in the exhibition. Immediately in the first room, two terrible images of human-animal abominations stare at us. These the "vagrants" of Baron László Mednyánszky. It's a shame to doubt whether these vagabonds are really vagabonds, let's rather doubt for a minute whether these monsters are really human beings or a cross between a frog and an orangutan? Their type is horrible, repulsive. If this is what the artist wanted, then he achieved his goal, but an artist, and a great poet like László Mednyánszky, cannot have the goal of creating disgust with his works. What is disgusting is not artistic, and in the old world they would have been burned at the stake Mednyánszky, along with his brush and tramps, if he had committed such a crime against aesthetics." (László Kézdi-kovács, Pest newspaper, December 11, 1900)
Genre-wise, Mednyánszky's vagabond pictures can be placed between portrait and still life, and among these works, such "movements", or more precisely, "state-forms", are very common, which are only apparently stable, the state of rest has been forcibly imposed on the depicted person(s).

"The workshop in Pest (on the same floor as the Basch Árpád) was in the street named after Pál in Vasvár, where apparently nothing else happened in the world, except that the Jews bought and sold old coats. However, this studio was mostly locked, in vain Mednyánszky's visitors knocked on the door. "People from horror novels come to him, every day I expect when they will rob me, when they will kill me," complained the neighboring painter. And on the wooden steps leading to the studio, in muddy weather, the footprints of guests who for some reason did not wear the soles of their shoes. But even in the pub opposite the house, there were always people waiting for Mednyánszky who paid for the occupied place by saying that the "baron" had promised them that he would come for them. This inn was dedicated to "bean soup", and the eyes of the figures waiting for the master were forever on the opposite gate. Because it happened that the painter returned home to his studio unnoticed (he did not attract attention with his old, careless figure lurking against the wall), and the His "bean soup" models only realized that some of their food companions had overtaken them and were hurrying out of the house with swinging steps with a suit of clothes on their arms, which had perhaps been bought for the painter by his art dealer the day before.

Gyula Krúdy: László Mednyánszky, the tramp baron (excerpt)

So much for the position of the sign on the left. A famous art historian claimed that Mednyánszky did not sign his paintings on the left side. A look at the database of the baron's works reveals everything about his knowledge and skills: he signed many of his paintings on the left side, although there is no doubt that the marking was on the right side. By the way, the sign does not "fall" off the picture, it is fused into the picture base. I tried to support my statement with two photos.

A rare painting by this amazing artist!