Károly Markó the Elder

Károly Markó, also known as Carlo Marco (25 September 1791,[1] Lőcse (today Levoča, Slovakia) – 19 November 1860, at the Villa Medici di Lappeggi near Bagno a Ripoli, Italy) was one of the first Hungarian landscape painters.

In the early 1800s, although he was already interested in art, he studied engineering as an apprentice in Pest and Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania).

Four years later, he moved to Vienna, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts,[2] majoring in history and landscape painting.

From 1826 to 1830, he lived in Kismarton (today Eisenstadt, Austria), then settled on the Eszterházy estates, where he produced copies for art dealers and was increasingly in demand.

He travelled again, from 1843 to 1848, when he decided to settle permanently somewhere near Florence, eventually taking up residence in a townhouse at Lappeggi, courtesy of Count Gherardesca.