Major Munkácsy painting "Golgotha" gets €10 million offer

A bid of 2.7 billion forints (EUR 10m) has been put in for the purchase of the painting Golgotha, one of the pieces of 19th century Hungarian painter Mihaly Munkacsy's famous trilogy, the county daily Hajdu-bihari Naplo said on Tuesday.

The bidder was Sandor Asztalos, a businessman in Debrecen in eastern Hungary, who said he would loan the large-scale painting to the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest to allow viewing by a large number of visitors, said the paper.

The paper said on Monday that a group close to a Lutheran church in the United States had expressed interest to buy the painting from Hungarian-born US art collector Imre Pakh, the owner, but mentioned no amount.

Pakh told the paper he would meet the group for inquiry talks on September 8 in New York.

Golgotha (1884) forms a trilogy with Ecce Homo (1896) and Christ before Pilate (1881), which is on loan and displayed at the National Gallery in Budapest.

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