Considered lost since the 1920s, “The Sleeping Lady in the Black Vase”, a painting by the Hungarian painter Robert Bereny, was found in a scene from the film “Stuart Little”!
It all started over the Christmas holidays of 2009, when Gergely Barki, an art historian and expert working for the National Museum of Hungary, was watching Rob Minkoff’s Stuart Little (1999) with his 3-year-old daughter.
It is then that he notices a painting in the film, hanging above the fireplace of the fictional family composed of the eponymous little mouse (voiced by Michael J. Fox in original version), his brother George (Jonathan Lipnicki) and his parents played by Hugh Laurie and Geena Davis. The painting in question bore a striking resemblance to a work by Hungarian artist Robert Bereny, which was last seen in public in 1928.
Gergely Barki in fact recognized “The Sleeping Lady with the Black Vase”, from its title, thanks to a black and white photograph taken of the work during its last exhibition.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Bereny’s masterpiece that everyone thought was lost hanging on the wall next to Hugh Laurie!”, Barki said. “It wasn’t just on screen for a second but in several scenes throughout the film so I knew I wasn’t dreaming. It was a very happy moment. […] It was the best Christmas present for an art historian”, he continued.
Columbia Pictures
However, the film had been released 10 years earlier and no one had recognized the painting in question. But how did such a work of art end up as a setting in a children’s film?
A painting that has traveled
Gergely Barki then put on her detective costume. “I started writing emails to everyone involved in the film”, he told the New York Post. He sent letters to Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures, and finally received a response from the film’s former assistant set designer… two years later!
According to Barki, the assistant purchased the painting at an antique store in Pasadena, California, for just $500. Unaware of its origin or value, she used the work to decorate the family’s apartment in the film based on the book of the same name by E.B. White. In the mid-1990s, art collector Michael Hempstead obtained the painting at a charity auction in San Diego for $40 before selling it to the antique store.
“I think I only paid 40 dollars”, he said (via The Guardian). “Someone had just donated it, probably along with many other items. A friend directed me to an antique store. Auction records for Bereny were $400-$600 at the time and I seem to remember getting a similar price.”
By the time Barki contacted the assistant set designer, the object was hanging in her room. Indeed, once the production of Stuart Little finished, she bought the painting. “I had the chance to visit him, see the painting and tell him everything about the painter. She was very surprised”, added Barki.
And Hugh Laurie in all of that ? When the Dr. House star heard the news in 2014, he couldn’t help but post on social media, humorously declaring that he had been “a little hurt to discover that the leading performances failed to command attention”, before adding: “but still, what an honor.”
Robert Bereny was a member of the Hungarian avant-garde collective known as The Eight, which helped introduce Cubism and Expressionism to Hungary. Although his work is highly regarded, the painter is perhaps best known for his love affairs: he is said to have dated actress Marlene Dietrich in Berlin in 1920 and, according to Barki, to have had an affair with Anastasia, the mysterious daughter of the last Russian sovereign, Tsar Nicholas II…
Still according to Barki, it is possible that the painting was purchased by a Jewish collector who transported it to the United States because of the Nazi threat. “Many masterpieces were lost in the turbulence of the 20th century”, clarified the expert.
Thanks to its lynx eye, the painting has since been repatriated. The assistant sold it to an art collector who returned it to Hungary. With a starting price of 110,000 dollars, it was finally sold at auction for the modest sum of 229,500 euros…
It’s your turn to spot the work in Stuart Little: the film is currently available for streaming on Netflix.