National Bank of Hungary pays HUF 4.5 billion for Titian

“Mary with Child and St. Paul”, earlier attributed to an unidentified early C16th Italian master, had hung in a private home in Pecs, southern Hungary, before being auctioned in 2005. It was bought by entrepreneur Gyula Pinter, who lent it to the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts.On its website, the central bank said that “in terms of its artistic value, this work is the greatest of art treasures re-discovered in Hungary in the past 50 years”.

Under its acquisition programme, the central bank seeks to recover major artworks exported from Hungary and buy treasures locally to keep them in the country, the website said. It added that the programme has a budget of 30 billion forints until the end of 2018.

The bank has so far spent 7.8 billion forints and bought artworks including Mihaly Munkacsy’s painting “Christ before Pilate” (HUF 1.6bn) and a collection of rare silver coins minted in Transylvania in the 14th-17th centuries (HUF 1.1bn), the website said.