For decades, the "Fur Alma" by Miklos Steinberg work was considered lost. Steinberg, who fled the Nazis to Switzerland in 1939 and eventually settled in New York, faded into obscurity after his death in 1960. His works were scattered, often mistaken for Soutine or dismissed as derivative.

The rediscovery occurred in 2003 during an estate clean-out in Budapest. A family clearing their grandmother’s attic found a rolled canvas behind a wardrobe. Covered in dust and mildew, the painting was nearly thrown away. Fortunately, a local antique dealer recognized the distinctive handling of the fur. After a five-year restoration by the Szépművészeti Múzeum, the signature "M. Steinberg / 1927" emerged from the grime, along with the faint, handwritten title on the verso: "Fur Alma."

The restoration revealed that the background was not originally brown, but a deep, oceanic blue that had oxidized. This discovery changed the painting’s mood entirely, suggesting Alma was not in a void, but drowning in a night sea of memory.

Here lies the mystery. Unlike paintings by Klimt or Schiele, the Fur Alma by Miklos Steinberg work exists in a grey area of art history. Steinberg, being Jewish, saw his studio looted after the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of Austria) in 1938. He fled to Switzerland and later to New York, where he died in obscurity in 1957.

Because of this dispersal, only five confirmed examples of the Fur Alma exist in public and private collections today:

Due to the fragile nature of the fur and wood, many dealers mistakenly categorize these pieces as "mixed media sculpture" rather than wearable art, causing them to appear in bizarre auction catalogs under "Ethnographic Textiles" or "20th Century Decorative Objects."

Why does the "Fur Alma" by Miklos Steinberg work resonate so deeply with contemporary viewers? Because it is not a portrait of a woman; it is a portrait of loss.

Alma, whomever she was, is absent. The fur coat, a garment designed to hold the shape of a body, hangs heavily, suggesting the weight of memory. The woman in the painting is either Alma herself, retreating into her fur after a tragedy, or a surrogate carrying Alma’s ghost. Note the emptiness around her neck: The fur collar is open, as if waiting for a face to nestle into it. That face is missing. We, the viewers, are meant to fill that void.

Art critic Lajos Vajda wrote in 1936: "Steinberg’s fur is not clothing. It is the skin of the soul. In ‘Fur Alma,’ the sitter is suffocating in her own insulation. She is warm, yet freezing. She is present, yet gone."

This dualism—the struggle between the desire to feel and the need to hide—is what elevates the "Fur Alma" by Miklos Steinberg work from a simple portrait to a universal statement on grief.