The Great Mouse Detective: How 'Stuart Little' Uncovered a Lost Painting

Through an accidental feat of art history sleuth work, researcher Gergely Barki discovered Róbert Berény’s avant garde masterpiece, Sleeping Lady With A Black Vase, which had been lost for over nine decades. It was all thanks to the tiny helping hand of a well-dressed jocular mouse named Stuart Little.

Back in 2009, Barki and his daughter Lola were watching a television re-run of the 1999 family comedy, Stuart Little. In the midst of an unspectacular scene in the Little’s elegant Manhattan home, Barki spotted Sleeping Lady With a Black Vase hanging on partially obscured apartment wall. “It was like a miracle of Christmas for me,” Barki told KQED News, “It seems almost impossible to find a painting hiding in a Hollywood movie. It’s really surreal.”

After two years of persistent emails, to Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, and even the original crew members of the film itself, Barki finally made contact with the unsuspecting owner of Sleeping Lady With Black Vase. The assistant set designer of Stuart Little had procured the painting for the film's set in an antique shop in Pasadena, California for $500, and after the film was completed, she decorated her own home with it.

Next week, Berény’s painting is planned to sell, thanks to the Barki’s detective work and the art world’s now favorite humanoid mouse, at the Virag Judit auction house at the starting price of $136,500.

Below, see the documentary of the discovery:

H/t The Guardian

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