sumotype_foundry

In 2009, Gergely Barki, a Hungarian art historian, made a remarkable discovery while watching the movie "Stuart Little" (1999). He noticed a painting titled "Sleeping Lady with Black Vase" by Róbert Berény, which had been missing for 90 years and had been used as a prop in the film. Barki, who had only seen a faded black-and-white photo of the painting from an exhibition in 1928, immediately recognized it as the original artwork. Realizing the significance of his finding, Barki promptly reached out to the film's production companies, Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures, via a series of emails. However, it took two years for him to receive a response, which came from a former set designer who had worked on the film. According to Barki, the set designer informed him that she had acquired the painting from an antiques shop in Pasadena, California, at a bargain price. Unaware of its true value, she had thought its avant-garde elegance would be a perfect fit for the living room set of "Stuart Little."