An important painting deemed missing since the 1920s was rediscovered by an art historian while watching the 1999 film "Stuart Little."

Gergely Barki – a researcher at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest -- saw the painting in the background of a scene in the family movie. He was in the midst of compiling the catalogue raisonne of the Hungarian painter Robert Bereny (1887-1953) and had seen an old photograph of his missing work “Sleeping Lady with Black Vase.” 

"I could not believe my eyes when I saw Bereny’s long-lost masterpiece on the wall behind Hugh Laurie,” Barki recently told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Bereny was a member of the Hungarian avant-garde group The Eight and is also considered one of the Hungarian fauves.

After a couple years passed, Barki's efforts to reach the film crew yielded contact with a production assistant who had found the avant-garde painting for $500 at a Pasadena, Calif., shop. After the filming, she purchased the painting and took it home.

The work was sold by the film assistant to an art collector. It is up for auction in Budapest Dec. 13 with a low estimate of $110,000.