Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings Signed (lower right): Munkacsy
Gallery Label Two years after Munkácsy settled in Paris in 1872, he married the titled widow of a French general. The room depicted in this painting was in their richly decorated apartment on the Avenue de Villiers. Here musical gatherings were held, and occasionally fellow Hungarian Franz Liszt performed. Munkácsy's Parisian residence, a meeting place for fashionable society, was the setting for a large number of pictures painted between 1878, the date of this work, and 1887.
Provenance [Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris]; Martha T. Fiske Collord, New York (until 1908)
Exhibition History New York. Knoedler. "An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints of Every Description, on the Occasion of Knoedler, One Hundred Years, 1846–1946," April 1–27, 1946, no. 73.
New York. Barnard College. "Feminine Elegance Through the Centuries," November 17–December 19, 1958, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "La Belle Époque," December 6, 1982–September 4, 1983, unnum. checklist.
Budapest. Hungarian National Gallery. "Munkácsy in the World: Mihály Munkácsy's Works in Private and Public Collections at Home and Abroad," March 24–July 31, 2005, no. 42.
References Dezsö Malonyay. Munkácsay Mihály . 2, Budapest, 1907, p. 17. B[ryson]. B[urroughs]. "Bequest of the Late Mrs. Martha T. Fiske Collord." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 3 (November 1908), p. 200. C[harles]. Sedelmeyer. M. von Munkácsy: Sein Leben und seine künstlerische Entwicklung . Paris, 1914, pp. 70–71, ill. Zsolt Harsányi. Munkácsy Mihály Képei . Budapest, [1934], ill. p. 105. Prof. L[ajos]. Végvári. Katolog der Gemälde und zeichnungen Mihály Munkácsys . Budapest, 1959, p. 51, no. 253, pl. LXXXIX [Hungarian ed., 1958]. András Székely. Munkácsy . 1980, pp. 10, 19, 27, 35, colorpl. 43. Zsuzsanna Bakó in Munkácsy in the World: Mihály Munkácsy's Works in Private and Public Collections at Home and Abroad . Exh. cat., Hungarian National Gallery. Budapest, 2005, pp. 169, 230, no. 42, ill. p. 173 (color).