Csontváry?s ?Company Crossing a Bridge?, painted around 1901, is featured in the catalogue at a starting price of HUF 80 million, a record for a Hungarian art auction. And understandably so: of Csontváry?s known 127 works ? 103 paintings and 24 graphic works ? just 22 paintings and 3 graphic works are in private collections, and their owners have closely guarded these truly rare treasures. In the last five years, just three Csontváry works have come up for auction. A year ago in spring, the Nagyházi Gallery sold Csontváry?s ?Company Playing Tennis? for HUF 90 million.
?Company Crossing a Bridge?, which depicts a group of dreamlike figures crossing over a river, was not exhibited in public until 1930, eleven year?s after the painter?s death. But it soon came to be considered as an integral example of 20th century Hungarian art and was included in a number of Csontváry exhibitions in Hungary and abroad.
The other star of the auction is a work by József Lampérth Nemes entitled ?Street at the Foot of Gellért Hill? with a starting price of HUF 15 million. The raw and forceful landscape is considered to be among one of the greatest works produced by the artist during his short life.
Among the other works the Mű-Terem will offer at the auction are pictures by László Mednyánszky, József Rippl-Rónai, Béla Kádár, István Farkas, Béla Czóbel, Vilmos Novák Aba and Sándor Bortnyik, ten rare plates, pitchers and vases produced by Hungary?s famous Zsolnay porcelain factory around the turn of the century, and an item of both artistic and historical interest: the favourite dress sword of Admiral Miklós Horthy, the former Regent of Hungary.
