The significant inspiration to the painter Miloš Jiránek (1875–1911) was stories and legends about bandits, read and heard during his regular sojourns in Slovakia. He decided to employ this subject in a series of paintings, and in 1905 completed the first one, entitled Along the Roads of Bandits. He must have been highly ambitious about the work, as is – among other things – clear from its dimensions, only comparable with his earlier Shower Cabins in the Prague Sokol Gym (1901–1903). [The Sokol – Falcon – movement is an all-age gymnastics organization first founded in Prague in 1862.] He nevertheless was not satisfied with the result, using the reverse of the canvas in the following year for the final version of the painting On the Weir, which today forms a crucial part of the GAVU permanent exhibition. He also changed the entire concept of the “bandit cycle” and began perceiving it as a collection of prints in the form of a bound album and accompanied by his own commentary. Jiránek did execute several prints, in aquatint, dry point, lithography, and woodcut, but the publication of the album eventually failed due to high financial expenses. In late 1906, he married Antonína Zedníková, and his main interest in painting shifted to women. He completely abandoned the topic of bandits and never returned to it since.