Hungarian Conservative

The display of Csontváry’s Sicilian landscape Full Moon over Taormina, painted in 1901, is considered an art sensation, as the privately-owned painting has not been seen by the wider audience for a long time. Now, it is featured in the exhibition titled Rome–Budapest, which opened on Thursday in the Virág Judit Gallery.

The artwork, also known as the Hungarian Mona Lisa, surfaced in 2005 after a century of obscurity but it did not stay in Hungary at that time.

The galleries exhibiting at the largest stands include Hungary’s acb and Erdész Gallery, Germany’s M Beck and Art Affair, Columbia’s Adrian Ibanez and Romania’s Jecza. Hungary will be represented by close to 50 exhibitors featuring some 300 artists.

According to the Kieselbach Gallery’s statement, this artwork, which evokes the spirit of the Paris School, Cézanne’s blues, the antique sculptures of the Louvre, and Henri Matisse’s nude painting, is one of the most beautiful still lives in modern Hungarian painting.