Hilly Landscape with Cloudy Skies

This small oil study on cardboard from 1835, now in the Slovak National Gallery, represents Markó working in a rapid, exploratory mode far from the polished exhibition canvases that defined his public reputation. Studies on cardboard were used by many nineteenth-century landscape painters as affordable, portable surfaces for outdoor observation or quick compositional experiments. The subject — hilly landscape with cloudy skies — is topographically generalised, suggesting this may have been executed in the Italian countryside as a direct observation sketch rather than a finished composition. By 1835 Markó had been in Italy for several years and was actively building the visual vocabulary of his mature work through precisely such small studies, capturing light conditions, cloud formations, and terrain features that he would later assemble into larger, more resolved compositions. The Slovak National Gallery's holding of several Markó sketches from this period reflects the geographic dispersal of his work across Central European collections connected by Habsburg administrative and cultural networks.

Oil on cardboard, a lightweight support suited to rapid outdoor work or quick compositional notation. The handling is freer and less finished than Markó's exhibition canvases, with broader brushwork and less detailed surface elaboration. The sky occupies a prominent portion of the composition, reflecting the study's primary interest in cloud formations and light conditions.