My latest publication is now out, but today is to readdress another topic first. In May 2010 this blog was started to protect my intellectual property and to ensure my research was not snatched up by the curator of the Unger exhibition and his collaborators. The owner of Alajos Alois Unger’s Madonna painting then displayed was also incredibly worried, despite a written contract and a high amount due in case of loss, that she would never see it again. That although the laws in Hungary regarding the protection of cultural goods was only officially amended thereafter, making it considerable easier for Hungarian authorities to appropriate themselves of artwork deemed relevant for the nation. Unger’s family portrait from 1843 fell under this védett–no export category already in 1974 when it was auctioned off and acquired by the National Gallery.

Later the new laws were passed, but even despite those many, as can be read on the pages of Hungarian Spectrum from 2015, consider it an illegal act when a famous art collector who did not want to sell a painting part of a trilogy for much less than the appraisals of the internationally leading auction houses stated, saw his artwork confiscated by the government of Hungary when he attempted to transport it out of the country to be sold elsewhere.

Now this must be borne in mind.