Auctions
The Gallery holds three auctions a year. On these occasions, we sell exceptional pieces of classical Hungarian painting and Zsolnay ceramics. The careful selection and the limited number of items assure that we sell artworks of outstanding quality – with a fast pace on our sales. In several cases, artworks were sold for quite unexpectedly high prices ever offered on an auction. The reasons are the followings: first of all, our Gallery maintains a constant high standard concerning the quality of the artworks offered to potential buyers. Secondly, owners have accumulated a large amount of trust capital since the establishment of the Gallery in 1997. Due to the fact that numerous collections of Hungarian painting have been amassed in various parts of the world during the last few years, besides Hungarian art collectors, several Western European and American collectors participate in our auctions, either by phone, online or with an absentee bid.
Private sale
Auctions are not the sole occasions to buy artworks from our firm. The Gallery offers a special, exclusive exhibition room, where excellent paintings and Zsolnay ceramics are presented to potential buyers throughout the year. The buyers can purchase these items directly from the Gallery. We have created a unique, rich database on paintings held by Hungarian private collectors; hence, we can find pieces of art, which cannot be bought by collectors participating only on sales.
Exchibitons
Our Gallery has an exclusive, specially lit exhibition space where guests and collectors can visit our permanent and as well our thematic exhibitions. We consider that one of the tasks to be fulfilled by our Gallery is the publication of various albums and studies, including monographs that should have been published long ago. Hence, we participate in the elaboration of such publications and/or provide funding for them. Our Gallery fosters excellent relations with private collectors. We have a unique database, hence no significant exhibition can be organised or no important publication could be issued without the Gallery's assistance. Judit Virág Gallery offered financial support for issuing several publications, including monographs, and helped public museums to organise exhibitions by lending artworks owned by the gallery itself.
History
Judit Virág Gallery is one of the leading actors on the Hungarian art market. This auction house was established in 1997 by its present owners, dr. Judit Virág art historian and István Törő businessman.
The gallery is located in the area where the bulk of Hungarian art trade is concentrated. The high-level gallery with offering more than 600 square metres on three storeys in Falk Miksa street no. 30 is one of the most beautiful exhibition spaces in Budapest.
The gallery represents an important milestone in Hungarian auctioning. The first auction held by this auction house was in 1998, with which the gallery made a surprising and forceful entrance to the Hungarian and Central European art trading.
The resounding success of this first auction can be explained by the lengthy and careful preparations preceding it, the important innovations regarding its professional management, its marketing and PR-activities. In the years to follow, all of this became standard practice on the Hungarian auction market.
According to the management of the Gallery, auctions in Hungary should be held in the same manner as it is done by great auction houses all around the world – with regards to form and content alike. Nevertheless, the most important innovations concerning the content of auctions was the publication of the first Hungarian catalogue, which contained professional background research and data, while using documents representing valuable sources for art historians.
