In 2009, while watching "Stewart Little" (1999), Hungarian art historian Gergely Barki saw the painting "Sleeping Lady with Black Vase" by Róbert Berény.

The painting had been missing for 90 years and had been used as a prop for the movie.

Even though it had disappeared in the 1920s, Barki recognized it immediately from a faded black-and-white photo taken at an exhibition in 1928.

He sent a flurry of emails to staff of Sony and Columbia Pictures and received a reply from a former set designer on the film - two years later.

"She said the picture had been hanging on her wall," Barki said. "She had snapped it up for next to nothing in an antique shop in Pasadena, California, thinking its avant-garde elegance was perfect for Stuart Little's living room."