Most expensive Hungarian painting stolen

The picture "Rendez-vous of Lovers" by Hungarian painter Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka - the painting sold at the highest price at Hungarian actions - has been stolen from an art collector, a Hungarian private individual.

The Csontváry painting was sold at an auction in Budapest in December 2006 at the record price of HUF 230 million (EUR 910,000 then, EUR 785,000 now). This Friday evening, police announced that this painting, along with other works painted by renowned Hungarian artists Pál Színyei Merse and László Mednyánszky, were stolen on March 15.

Péter Buzinkay of the National Office of Cultural Heritage told Hungarian Television that this painting by Csontváry is a protected work of art – the others stolen are protected but well-documented as they turned up at several auctions and exhibitions.

Csontváry’s ‘Rendez-vous of Lovers’ is believed to have been painted around 1902. It had not appeared at auctions – and even researchers were not aware of its whereabouts – for a long time. In 2006, it was put up for auction by a family whose members did not consider themselves as art collectors but were in possession of this work of art for six decades.