10 Movie Facts You Probably Don’t Know
3. A Famous Lost Painting Was Used As A Prop - Stuart Little
It's amazing what can be hidden in a movie in plain sight only to be discovered years later, as was the fascinating case with 1999's hit family film Stuart Little.
In 2009, a decade after its release, art historian Gergely Barki was watching the film when he noticed a significant painting hanging up in the Littles' home - Hungarian painter Róbert Berény's 1920s work Sleeping Lady with Black Vase.
This was a major realisation given that the painting was considered lost by the art community after World War II, yet as it turns out, it was quietly auctioned off during the 1990s and later sold to Sony Pictures for $500, where it was used it as a prop in Stuart Little without any knowledge of its wider significance.
Art historian Barki subsequently contacted Sony to try and track down the painting's location, eventually travelling to the United States to meet with the film's set designer who still owned the prop, allowing them to see it in-person and confirm its authenticity.
In 2014, the painting was auctioned for a princely $285,700 - quite the step up for an item being passed around for relative chump change just 15 years earlier.