Miklós Barabás

In 1834-1835 he traveled to Italy, where he learned watercolor painting from the Scottsman William Leighton Leitch who was six years his senior; they became friends and toured and painted in the Lago Maggiore region in 1834, and Leitch was a great influence on Barabás's future work.

He won the great support of the literary and political leaders of the Reform Age, and was undeniably a pioneer of Hungarian national art.

He was a founder and active member of art life in Hungary, and the beginnings of Hungarian genre painting are also linked with his name.

Starting in his 20s he painted a great number of Hungary, Austria and Romania's elite in formal portraits.

His realistic style was in vogue in mid-19th-century Europe, in the decades just before photography was invented and the artistic revolution of Impressionism.