Children's movie leads art historian to long-lost Hungarian masterpiece (2014)
20 days ago
- #Avant-Garde
- #Hungarian History
- #Art Recovery
- A long-lost avant-garde painting, 'Sleeping Lady with Black Vase' by Róbert Berény, was rediscovered in the Hollywood film 'Stuart Little'.
- Gergely Barki, a Hungarian art historian, recognized the painting while watching the movie with his daughter in 2009.
- The painting had been missing since the 1920s and was later found to have been purchased from an antiques shop in Pasadena, California.
- After being used as a prop in the film, the painting was sold to a private collector and is now being auctioned in Budapest.
- Róbert Berény, the artist, was part of the Group of Eights and fled Hungary after the 1919 communist revolution.
- The painting will be auctioned on 13 December with a starting price of around €110,000.
- Many Hungarian masterpieces were lost or scattered globally due to 20th-century wars and revolutions.