Bibliography:
Végvári Lajos: Munkácsy Mihály élete és művei (The life and work of Mihály Munkácsy) Akadémiai Kiadó. Budapest. 1958.
Genthon István: Az új magyar festőművészet története.(The story of the new Hungarian Painting) Magyar Szemle Társaság. Budapest. 1935.
Rippl-Rónai József emlékezései (József Rippl-Rónai's memoirs). Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó. Budapest. 1957.
By the beginning of the 1880s, Mihály Munkácsy had become a successful, rich, world-famous painter. His luxurious Parisian palace was the scene of the society life of the city, partly thanks to his wife, the widow of Baron Marsch of Colpach. "That famous Munkácsy soirées were such, that were real rarities even in a city like Paris" put Rippl-Rónai in his Memoirs, remembering his master (p.39.)
In 1876, the "In the Atelier" was the first in the series that is called "saloon-paintings" by the Munkácsy research. The theatre-like scenes placed in the frame of the bourgeois life, compose a very important part of the oeuvre (Visiting the baby, Parisian interior, Afternoon visit, The little sugar-thief, The tiger). "The life of the well-to-do bourgeois class become animated through everyday little things. This life becomes interesting like a sunk, disappeared world. Sunshine brightens them, they are harmonic and easy. These pictures are not really genre paintings, but rather experiments to observe the rich world of colours and lights of an interior, using a plain tale as a pretext. The small size did good to these pictures; their painting is delicious and lively, and a good few pearls can be found among them." (Genthon, p. 124.) Such a pearl is this painting which got home from Paris. It has exceptional value, as it has just appeared, it has been unknown so far. It is signed lower right M. de Munkácsy. It is not one of the properly dramatised scenes that are in majority in the oeuvre, but is one of the intimate, warm pieces that were inspired by the spontaneity, the momentary charming atmosphere of the scene.
It was painted in Munkácsy's home, in a parlour, depicting a woman (most possibly the artist's wife), reading in a comfortable position. The furnishing of the parlour reflects the eclectic taste of the age; its furniture is as fashionable as possible; it is, course, was expected from the most fashionable painter of the age. There is a Venetian mirror on the walls, there is gobelin on the XIV. Louis-style chairs, bearskin on the floor, there are palms (instead of the well-known Makart-bouquets from Vienna), Neo-renaissance furniture, ceramics in the saloon. What makes the painting a masterpiece is the way Munkácsy could sensualize the different materials, the different qualities, the different touches - the coldness of the metal, the softness of the bearskin, the warmth of the red velvet with his inimitable, detailed, easy, virtuose touch.
The sun is lightening the room from the window on the right side; it is flowing through the figure, and the white dress of the woman, it is brightening the metal of the fireside-bars, it is touching the wooden chairs, it is talking to the objects in the brown half-dimness of the background, and to the Venetian mirror.
The white dress of the female figure is painted with almost impressionistic freshness. As Munkácsy masterly varies the tones, and the red reflexes, the forms of the figure become plastic.
This picture is not one of the series of the parlour-paintings, but it is print of an exceptionally intimate moment in the late morning, or early afternoon. We can see the artist's wife as none of the visitors of the Munkácsy-palace could see her. It radiates the warmth of home, with the help of all the devices of Munkácsy's painting skills and knowledge.
Dr. Bényi, László