(MTI) - The trilogy will be seen together for the first time in the capital, after the exhibition was shipped over from its owner Deri Museum in Debrecen (E) first to Pecs (S) and now to Budapest, Lena Miklos said.
The huge paintings -- Ecce Homo! (1896), Golgotha (1884) and Christ before Pilate (1881) -- were lifted into the exhibition hall on Monday and Wednesday and are now being prepared for exhibition together with complementary materials from the artist's oeuvre and life.
Curator Zsuzsanna Bako said the transport of the paintings was a challenge, as well as creating the right exhibition atmosphere.
"We had to build a very firm fixture for it, as the paintings weigh about 900 kilogrammes each," she said.
"A special space had to be created to accentuate the paintings' atmosphere of awe, magnificence and drama," Bako added.
The Munkacsy trilogy was reunited in Debrecen in the summer of 2009, when the missing piece from the trio arrived from Canada.
Ecce Homo is owned by the Deri Museum, Golgotha is in the ownership of Hungarian-born US collector Imre Pakh but is on permanent loan to the museum. Christ before Pilate, part of Canada's cultural heritage, cannot be sold until 2012 and Canadian laws will grant local collections a pre-emptive right to buy the painting in 2012 before it will be offered to anyone else. The Mayor of Debrecen has earlier pledged the city would fight for obtaining the painting and keeping the trilogy together.
The exhibition in Budapest will be open until April 30.
