Myslbek Karel 1874–1915

Horses, 1904

oil on canvas, cardboard, 49 × 75,5 cm, frame, inscription Karel on the reverse Myslbek - Horses (ca. 1904) Provenance: family of Miloš Jiránek. Professionally restored.
Karel Myslbek, son of his famous father, sculptor Josef Václav Myslbek, was once described as a painter of human misery and suffering. The Academy of Fine Arts Artists' Academy under the name František Voves, taking evening courses in painting under Professor Maximilian Pirner, while he graduated in 1899 under Professor Vojtěch Hynais. He was one of the greatest friends of Miloš Jiránek, with whom he liked to landscape by the Vltava River in Troja and at wandering in the Mělník region. His influence can be seen in his early unmarked oil of Horses from around 1904, where the stagecoach is elevated high above the horizon already anticipates the artist's later compositions with massive figures in an urban or landscape context. The expression of the painting is partly influenced in part by his summer stay in France and Spain in 1903, where admiring especially Velázquez and Goya of his elders and Zuloaga of his peers. The colour palette, muted into a sonority, corresponds to this. balladic tone. The painting comes from the family of Miloš Jiránek, who was the painting was directly dedicated to him by his friend Myslbek.