Kovacsdr is the leading expert of BudapestAukcio online. He is an outstanding master of his field. We asked him what makes somebody able to give trustworthy expertise on a painting?

My late father was a painting, grapchic arts and sculptur judicial expert and noted art collcetor. His assistants and students were Péter Fertőszögi and also Gábor Einspach. As a child I was surrounded by the quality paintings of the family collection. The paintings of Patkó Károly, Paizs Goebel Jenő, Czigány Dezső Mednyánszky László és Vaszary János were hanging on the walls of my room. No wonder there's a constant interest in my life for paintings and artworks.

The fact that I can identify paintings of different artists with such self confidence and that I can tell forgery from the original comes from my upbringing, self- teaching and practice. You have to watch and "learn" a lot of pictures; the pictures of Hungarian auction as well as the collections of Hungarian museums, foreign galleries and auction houses. You need decades for this kind of learning. I've been going to museums and auctions since 1976.

Earlier auctions could only be held by the Bizományi Áruház Vállalat (Commission Store Company) as a state monopoly, so I could only visit these. But this way I could utilize the decade-old knowledge of the Commission Store's appraiser. I've been visiting the Ecseri street market (nowadays: Nagykőrösi street market) since 1979 to gain practice, and by doing so I soon learned the less elegant way of collecting artworks. I've been collecting paintings directly since 1984. I've employed some researchers now working in the Museum of Fine Arts.

I have a painting and artwork appraiser qualification. In the last 34 years of inland practice I examined the authenticity of more thousand paintings and sculptures and did their pricing. I can say with confidence that I have an expertise on paintings and sculptures based on Hungarian and foreign auction prices, and I have a thoroug professional and practical preparedness. It's very important for me to know the works of painter as much as I can and to support my professional opinion with comparative prices and analogies.

In the past decades I've been traveling a lot, I spent a long time in New York and London. When abroad the most important thing for me was to get to know the local art trade and examine the collections of museums. I always came back with heavy luggages filled with catalogues and technical books. All this knowledge mentioned above is now categorised by a database of paintings, graphic arts and sculptures. This is the biggest database of this kind in Hungary containing more than 4 million items.