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Fake or Fortune Season 13 Episode 1
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00:00each year hundreds of thousands of people make their way to antiques fairs and flea markets
00:07across the UK drawn by the possibility of discovering something special
00:12Barry James a carer and passionate art collector believes he may have done just that he recently
00:21discovered a painting he believes to be by none other than sir Winston Churchill so the owner of
00:27the painting has agreed to show it to us in one of the houses that Churchill used to stay in you'll
00:32love it the modest sort of place Lennon Palace Philip this is grand even for you hello Barry
00:43recognize this man of course sir Winston Churchill prime minister war leader and amateur painter
00:54let's go have a look whose paintings can sell for millions of pounds it's very pretty isn't it
01:02really emotive work could this painting of an English garden on a summer's day be one of
01:09sir Winston's lost works we're on the hunt for lost treasure that is massively encouraging
01:18international art dealer Philip Mould and I have teamed up to investigate mysterious works of art
01:25I don't believe it but are they worthless fakes someone has put a signature on top dastardly
01:31or missing masterpieces this is indeed a work by Helen McNichol worth a fortune at 42 million
01:40barry has set his picture up in Blenheim Palace's India room decorated in the 1820s the scenes of a tiger
02:00hunt this is somewhere Churchill liked to paint this is really fascinating Barry Barry's picture depicts a
02:09garden on a summer's day some imposing steps framed with pink flowers perhaps a rose of
02:15some sort and a woman perched on a wall reading a book what's the background story I bought it from
02:23an antique fair almost three years ago in Sussex didn't pay much for it what did you pay paid 140
02:30pounds for it gosh it's yeah I think that's a bit of a bargain well what was it sold as Winston
02:36Churchill no just the unsigned painting which it was so at this stage that the name Churchill hasn't
02:41been attached to it at all so so what happens next well it's actually a couple of days later took out the
02:46frame I found an inscription on the back here oh an inscription yeah so this painting of mrs. Winston
02:54Churchill on wall of sunken garden at Hurstman Zoo I think you pronounce that Hurstman Zoo Castle Sussex
03:00by the right Honorable Winston S Churchill June 1916 wow what do you think when you saw that blown away
03:08yeah I bet you were Churchill's stirring wartime speeches and determined personality made him an enduring
03:16symbol of courage and resilience though in recent years he's become a more divisive figure for Churchill
03:23painting was a tool for managing his mental health and a vital distraction from the challenges of his
03:29high-powered life although he dismissed his own workers amateur daubs enthusiastic collectors from the UK
03:37and America have driven prices up a painting of his owned by actor Angelina Jolie sold a few years ago
03:45for seven million pounds this looks like quite old handwriting you know it could be could be early 20th century
03:55and the date 1916 so that's that's basically just a year after Churchill decides to take up painting as a pastime
04:05and then it continues as a passion throughout his life so this could be something really emotive really important and just turn it over again if you wouldn't mind when you saw it at this antiques fair what attracted you to it with the colors really the composition was quite nice
04:22it's some really distinctive strokes and colors here the splodgy background strokes look like they've been done with the tip of a large brush also used for the hedge at the right
04:36the technique is distinctive and done with boldness and gusto
04:42you've got this inscription on the back yeah but the fact there's no signature on it is there any significance in that
04:49no sometimes he signed sometimes he didn't was there anything else that you noted about it
04:54found a number on the back here which is Christie's stock number
04:58from the auction house from the auction house Christie's yeah
05:00yeah that you you get those marks on a lot of pictures not these days but in the past that show
05:05that it's been through Christie's in some way it's been considered or sold or or something yeah description
05:10if we are to prove this is by Churchill we have been there before you and I was about 10 years ago we
05:16looked at a Churchill painting which we were convinced was right it was undeniably right but what happened
05:23well we didn't get it through it was turned down in 2015 we looked into a painting of a
05:29fountain in the French town of sample divorce several years later a photograph of it was found
05:35in Churchill's archives that finally proved it was by the great man we'll need to find the same kind of
05:42cast-iron evidence for Barry's picture the process of authentication for Churchill is in a kind of limbo
05:49and our only hope of getting the art world to accept the painting as genuine will be an inarguable
05:55provenance that takes us back to Churchill's own brush so if it is by Churchill what do you think
06:01it could be like well we're looking at I think a very significant value and if this is Clementine in
06:09the picture his wife adds a certain sort of rich emotive element we're talking up to about half a
06:15million pounds I didn't think that I didn't expect that at all amazing to start the investigation I want
06:27to find out a bit more about the circumstances in which Barry bought the painting so we're heading to the
06:33tea room Barry tell me about you and you're collecting a picture so you bought this particular picture
06:43at an antique sale is that something you do a lot um yeah quite often yeah I've been doing it for 35
06:49years now and have you bought many oh thousands thousands yeah I don't have any hanging up at all
06:55you don't have any pictures no no my wife doesn't like pictures hanging up I know it sounds crazy
07:02plenty of pictures of the kids and stuff but no pictures themselves you know all paintings and
07:06watercolors what have you managed to find out yourself about the painting I made an appointment at
07:12a major auction uh turned up they couldn't be bothered to come down and see me so I went unannounced to
07:17another auction around the corner they liked it um they said it is like something Churchill would paint
07:24but they thought some of it was painted in acrylic I was just dumbfounded I mean it looks
07:29like oil to oh yeah so what do you do when you took the painting around auction houses were you
07:37taken seriously no not at all no no I think probably because the way I speak the way I dress just don't
07:43look like a typical art person art dealer it's quite a rarefied world isn't it yeah yeah around auction
07:49houses oh definitely yeah and what about the numbers on the back because you say you recognize
07:54those as a christie's stamp yeah yeah so have you been to christie's i did yeah i worked to the
07:58archives and all they could say to me that it came from a bank they couldn't really tell me any
08:03more about it but then um the number is on the back of the frame not the picture itself so it could
08:08have just been the frame and another picture that went into of course it's the backing of the
08:11frame it might not have been the picture it was in the frame at the time so you've made some
08:16progress with your picture by the sounds of it and then you hit a brick wall which is why you've come to us
08:20yeah i'm hoping you guys can help me out yeah well we'll do our best appreciate that you never know
08:27fingers crossed absolutely
08:31while fiona and barry get stuck into the biscuits i'm taking the opportunity to look at a genuine
08:37churchill here at blenheim that was painted in 1915 a year before the 1916 date on the back of
08:46barry's picture are there any stylistic similarities that may link the two around the corner lurking
08:53down the end of a corridor is the picture that i've been looking for this was done in 1915 the year
09:00he started painting a sort of landscape portrait if you want done at ho farmhouse a place of refuge
09:08for the family and it represents gwendoline churchill who's winston churchill's sister-in-law
09:14who has a very crucial part to play because in the year that this was painted at this very place
09:20in ho farm gwendoline introduced him to art she suggested that he use her son's watercolors and from
09:29there he moved to oil paintings and art became that passion one of the guiding muses of his life
09:36i don't want to be rude about winston churchill i mean let's not forget though he just started
09:42this is a slightly amateur painting you've got a splinter of green above brushing against a splinter
09:50of green below and then there are emerging idiosyncrasies and if you peer very carefully
09:58the tree in the top left corner you can see he's applied blue on top of the green to create a few
10:05windows into the foliage he's put some blue on top barry's painting uses the same technique blue paint
10:14added later to create windows of sky in the leaves and then there's the figure now this figure is stiff
10:23it's not really that plausible churchill clearly needed anatomy lessons but it is very distinctive notice
10:31how the figure looks a bit like a mannequin in barry's painting clementine is rendered in a similarly stiff
10:39pose there are traits of a particular hand at work and i think we've got enough to start our investigation
10:49back in london i'm hitting the books the inscription on the back of barry's picture says it was painted
11:02at herstman zoo castle in june 1916. so what was going on in churchill's life at this point
11:11the previous year he'd been blamed for the allied disaster at gallipoli
11:14he resigned from office and served on the western front for six months returning to england in early
11:22may 1916. bitter and brooding friends considered him a broken man did he paint barry's picture a mere
11:31month later the first place i need to check are the catalogues of churchill's artworks
11:37barry's picture is not listed in either of these books which is a shame obviously but there's a
11:45fantastic quotation in one of them from violet bonham carter who was the daughter of prime minister
11:50herbert asquith and she describes a stay at herstman zoo castle along with winston churchill and she
11:57talks about watching him paint in the garden she says as he painted his tensions relaxed his frustration
12:05evaporated the quotation is taken from violet's 1965 published account of her friendship with churchill
12:17this book ends in 1916 but violet describes a visit to herstman zoo castle in sussex
12:24she's invited by the owner and among the other guests is winston churchill his wife clementine
12:29and his mother and just before winston churchill arrives the big moment there's a wonderful
12:35description listen to this his coming was heralded by a procession of gardeners bearing an easel
12:41a large canvas a chair a box of paints and a bristling bundle of brushes the whole armory of his new
12:48art and she then goes on to describe him painting in the garden
12:53she says watching him paint for the first time on that june morning i became suddenly aware
13:00it was the only occupation i'd ever seen him practice in silence and she describes
13:06winston churchill's bitterness and sadness frustration that he is no longer part of the war
13:13and the only thing that brings him any kind of solace or or peace is painting
13:18so reading this putting it all together we've got the date 1916 june
13:29herstman zoo castle in the garden and winston churchill painting the scene before him
13:37certainly sounds like it could be barry's picture that she's describing here
13:42how do we prove it though
13:49meanwhile i'm dropping the painting off at the courthold institute of art
13:53where professor aviva bernstock wastes no time in starting a thorough scientific examination
14:01uv light shows some areas of overpaint analysis of the earlier pigment beneath will help date the painting
14:09now it's back to the gallery to take stock
14:18well you've got your work out on this one no provenance except barry buying it at an antiques
14:24fair yes i know but there's a particular challenge with with winston churchill he's not really like
14:30other artists because as well as being a painter we're dealing with probably probably the most famous
14:37political figure of the 20th century so therefore it's not just a question of working out provenance
14:42it's placing it in his career when and possibly why he might have done it and i know for certain it's
14:49never been possible to authenticate a churchill without knowing every single detail look we've got
14:56the inscription on the back let's not forget that it appears to corroborate violet bonham carter's
15:01account uh which i read and are there subtle clues here i mean take the spelling of hurstman zoo that's
15:09not how it's done these days it's it's quite old-fashioned 20s 30s perhaps yeah it looks like it
15:16surely that the big question is who wrote this inscription fortunately we have a list of names
15:22that violet bonham carter says were at hurstman zoo when she saw churchill painting could one of them
15:28have kept the picture and recorded the details on the back this is really beginning to feel like an
15:35agatha christie except it's not a smoking gun but a smoking paintbrush that we're after well let's
15:40get them together in the drawing room in agatha christie style so we've got churchill violet bonham
15:47carter and her husband morris churchill's wife clementine who's apparently in the painting itself
15:51according to the inscription churchill's mother jenny she was there as well and then of course the man who
15:56invited them all the mp claude lab the conservative mp this is beginning to feel more and more like a
16:01sussex drama and of course ardingly antiques fair where barry bought the picture is only about 30
16:08miles from hurstman zoo so could have been painted in a castle and then 100 years later sold just down
16:13the road at an antiques fair is that just coincidence do you know what i'd like to see i'd like to go
16:18to ardingly antiques fair have a sniff around talk to some of the stallholders there all right well
16:24why don't i go to hurstman zoo and go back to the beginning of this where this painting appears
16:29to have been painted and see what i can find out on that end sounds like a blend
16:42i'm following up on the inscription on the back of the picture it says churchill painted his wife
16:48clementine in the garden of hurstman zoo castle in june 1916. so i've come to hurstman zoo castle
16:57to see if that's actually true see if i can find the exact spot where hopefully
17:03winston churchill painted barry's picture
17:07hurstman zoo castle dates from the 15th century built as a fortified mansion it was largely dismantled
17:14in the 18th century eventually the picturesque ruin was bought by the conservative mp colonel claude
17:21lowther in 1911 who set about restoring the castle and garden wow look at that gorgeous
17:30i've arranged to meet dylan garden supervisor here
17:40dylan hi hi nice to meet you nice to meet you this is all looking magnificent thank you
17:45so i've got a picture of a painting here that we're investigating and the owner
17:50hopes it's here at hurstman zoo with this staircase and the wall does this look familiar to you yes it
17:56does it does oh it does yes and whereabouts is it um just down here right okay violet bonham carter
18:05remembered this garden as a place where herbaceous borders flowed in torrents of color against a
18:11background of old brick walls
18:17so you reckon these are the steps they look different though don't they i think these were
18:23the original steps before they were developed in the 30s and extended out oh i see right though the
18:31column looks the same yes with the ball on top this is fascinating the steps haven't looked like barry's
18:38picture since the 1930s almost 90 years ago what about this very imposing tree so that's the black mulberry
18:46tree taller then has reduced due to limb drop it's very heavy fruit and the wood itself is quite brittle
18:54so we've got various supports holding it up so we believe it to be about 150 years old oh i see and
19:00that's that tree there that's that tree there oh wow and then i mean these yew hedges are stunning
19:09but how does that work with the angle of this picture then so i think he would have painted it from over
19:15there over here oh i see oh i see so this corner is this here yes right i've got you so this yew hedge
19:26would have been a bit shorter then yes definitely oh and there's even a climber here i mean these roses
19:33are not as old as 1916 but you get the idea they're embedding plants or rambling rose and these roses
19:39would have been removed when they developed the stairway which is a bit of a shame actually it's a
19:44shame because they look stunning wow oh my goodness i mean it hasn't changed much not really no
19:52i mean i'm thinking whoever painted this i mean has to have stood right here really definitely if this
19:59is by wilson churchill there's a possibility this is clemmy his wife oh come on dylan do you want
20:04to go and be clemmy okay i'll be clemmy you haven't got a pink dress on so you've let us down a bit
20:09there dylan but do you want do you want to go and sit up there i will you're a very good sport
20:17all right doing all right so moving along a little bit oh about there i reckon right now
20:23perch in a ladylike fashion as if you're reading a book oh that's it oh looking good right dylan
20:30i'm going to get a picture hang on because i need to show this to philip okay reading your book
20:39with your lovely pink dress on perfect you're a perfect clementine
20:44we're not here at the same time of year but the similarities are undeniable this is definitely
20:54the right place so that's one question answered this painting is of hurstman's zoo castle and whoever
21:03painted it must have stood here and seen exactly this view but was it winston churchill still don't know
21:12that oh well done fiona i have to say that looks like the spot so now we know that barry's picture
21:30depicts the garden at hurstman's zoo as it was over 90 years ago but we still don't understand how the
21:37painting ended up in an antiques fair in 2022 the international antiques and collectors fair at arding
21:46lie in west sussex is just 30 miles away from hurstman's zoo and attracts tens of thousands of
21:53visitors each year barry bought his picture here but can't remember much about the person who sold it to
22:01him i mean is there anything that you can recall that might help us all i remember is a middle-aged
22:08guy white van sorry barry middle-aged man i know i know white van have you any idea how many there are
22:17unsurprisingly the fair's organizers can't match barry's description to their records
22:23it's a bit of a long shot barry but my hope is that by coming here you'll be able to remember the
22:29person you bought it from i know it was on the grass but it's by abegaveney hall wherever that is um
22:36oh there it's over there oh okay well we can make our way there but of course he might not necessarily
22:42be returned no of course not to the scene no no as well as trying to spot barry's elusive seller we
22:50have flyers to jog people's memories does one of the stallholders recognize the painting look i wonder
22:57if you can help us barry here bought this painting three years ago somewhere in the fair does it ring
23:03any bells it wasn't us i'm afraid and i haven't seen that one hello there hi does it mean anything to
23:17you not ringing any bells people move around so it's difficult people move around yeah we'll keep looking
23:23oh i mean the terms of needle and haystack come to mind
23:40i wonder if you could help us yes of course just does the picture mean anything to you no
23:44do you know whereabouts um it was i do as i bought over by the hall there abegavenial so a lot of people
23:49just come from once or just come twice so someone who could have been there one year could quite
23:55easily not be the next oh dear yeah that's another layer of complication barry after handing out all
24:03our flyers and speaking to scores of stallholders we're taking a break oh thanks a lot tell me when
24:10yeah and i'm keen to find out where hunting for lost treasures fits into barry's life so barry i know
24:17you and your wife are joint carers where does the art and the collecting and the and the hunt come
24:24come into it all i think it's just a form of respite really coming to these places we need some sort
24:29of break you know she does her own thing and i just come out now and again in the morning a therapy
24:35that can occasionally be profitable yeah it's definitely a therapy yeah yeah i just love it
24:40yeah you've had some cracking fines in your time yeah i just buy what i like really i found a nice painting
24:45by ludwig mind a german expressionist um serious artist yeah signed and dated 1912 yeah it was a
24:51nice find and where did you discover that i bought that from a small auction and you sold it i did yeah
24:58god that looks like a serious picture yeah incredible subject that must have fed you for a few years it did
25:04yeah so coming back to your with any luck winston churchill if we did prove to the satisfaction of
25:12the art market that this was by churchill yeah what would you do with it i think reluctantly i probably
25:18would end up selling it what would you do with the proceeds um well obviously for the family i mean um
25:26we always want to go to niagara falls with tech we go there for a start my youngest son he really
25:32he'd love to go there why niagara falls is a matter of interest um my son's um disabled and um uh i think
25:41he'd really enjoy something like that i mean he's got a sensory room which he really enjoys and something
25:45like niagara falls the sound and the visual effects and stuff i think that's somewhere that he'd really
25:50enjoy to go i can totally understand that well let's do our damnedest to prove it much appreciated
25:57as the day comes to a close it's clear we're no further forward well sadly it looks as though we've
26:05drawn a blank it doesn't look as though we found the guy who sold the picture to barry therefore surely
26:13now we've got to look more closely than ever at herstman zoo 30 miles away back at herstman zoo
26:22castle i'm keen to see if we can find anything that might corroborate the account of churchill's visit
26:27in 1916. historian claire kennan has been looking into records from herstman zoo and other archives claire
26:35hello nice to see you and i'm meeting her in the staircase hall i brought along the picture that we are
26:42looking at written on the back it's described as being here at herstman zoo and painted by winston
26:50churchill when he was invited here by claude lowther so claude lowther what can you tell me about him
26:58claude lowther is a really really interesting character he purchases the castle in around 1910 1911
27:04and it is a complete ruin he sets about restoring the castle he really wants to create this fabulous
27:10country home and this is him and this is him yes taken in 1902 looking very dapper was lowther good
27:18friends with churchill that's harder to discern but we do know that churchill does certainly come and
27:23visit the castle at some point so what do we know about churchill's visits here then we can place them
27:28in the summer of 1916 we know that he comes here during a period when he's feeling very low perhaps
27:34depressed by what's going on on the western front and he comes to rest and recuperate to paint and ponder
27:42we've already spoken to the head gardener here dylan he thinks this is here at herstman zoo have we got
27:47any photographs of the garden or of the castle at the time certainly and the one that we've got here
27:53actually looks very much like what's represented in the painting you can see that we've got the same
27:59steps we've got the same sort of borders slightly different angle but to my mind this could be
28:06very much the location that churchill painted oh yeah for sure i mean look at that yep and is
28:11there anything that places churchill here in 1916 in june not in june but we do have a letter here
28:19dated august 1916 where churchill is talking about his visit to her swan zoo and in this particular one
28:26that we've got he actually talks about how he can hear the guns thudding away on the western front
28:30during his stay so we can place churchill at herstman zoo castle in the summer of 1916 but not
28:36necessarily in june oh we're so close i mean we know we found the spot yeah we've put churchill and
28:42lauda together we have we put churchill at herstman zoo in the summer of 1916 but august and not june
28:50but this has been very useful claire thank you thank you very much
28:59we're gradually assembling evidence to prove that churchill was indeed painting at herstman zoo in the
29:04summer of 1916. so back in london philip and i are meeting up at the gallery hi hey philip
29:12to plot out our next steps so let me update you the stencil on the bag that barry went to christie's
29:19about and all they could tell him was that his picture been brought in with another by a bank
29:23so i approached them and they agreed to contact the bank on our behalf but actually we haven't
29:28heard anything back at all could have come from a different picture yes it might not have ever been
29:32to christie's actually what i've been doing is trying to make sure you know before we go any further
29:38that this picture hasn't been stolen because because buying something from an antiques fair
29:44nothing wrong with that but no paperwork at all we don't want to end up with something that's that's
29:48hot we've checked the lost art database the fbi's national stolen art file and conducted a full search
29:55of the art loss register which includes 700 000 items that have been looted or stolen looked at all the
30:03lists it doesn't have a stolen history well at last some positive news that's good let's look at the
30:09timeline we've got 2022 arding lie where we know barry bought it they had this big gap all the way
30:18back in time to 1916 when hopefully churchill painted it and the only other date we've got is 1978
30:24when barry's picture may have passed through christie's assuming the backing board and that stencil
30:29were attached to barry's picture then well i mean in terms of supporting paperwork that's about as
30:34bad as it gets yes and actually there's more bad news because let's focus in on 1916 the inscription
30:40on the back of the painting and violet bonham carter in her book both say the picture was painted
30:46in june 1916 that's the month but looking at the historical records about churchill i can place him
30:52at hurstman zoo in august 1916 but there's no record of him being there in june that's awkward yeah you can
30:58say that again could someone have read her book where she describes churchill painting a picture
31:03for which there's no record in the catalogues and then faked that painting claiming that they had
31:09found it it's very cynical this but but fakers did do that it might explain why the date of june
31:15that violet bonham carter mentions in her book is replicated on the painting but it's not repeated
31:21anywhere else in any information about churchill violet's book was written half a century after the
31:27events she describes could she have made a mistake about the date being june and this mistake was then
31:33incorporated into a forgery you know as you say that is awkward and we need to find some other way
31:40where we can feel comfortable placing churchill at hurstman zoo in 1916 in the month of june
31:48with the provenance trail running cold is there anything in the picture itself that could tell us
32:01exactly when churchill could have painted it at hurstman zoo august when his letters show he was there
32:08or june as written on the back of the painting when i wonder would those gorgeous pink roses have been in
32:16bloom i've come to rhs wisley to meet michael marriott hi nice to meet you one of the world's leading
32:25rose experts i want to pick your brains about the rose oh yes what kind of rose might it be when it
32:32might have flowers all right almost certainly a rambler of some sort i think the way it's sort of
32:37trained going up and down the balustrade um but we've got some specimens in the herbarium maybe we
32:42could look at those and see if we can pinpoint a bit more okay thanks okay the herbarium at wisley
32:50houses the uk's largest collection of ornamental plant specimens michael has been scouring their
32:57archives looking for rose varieties that were around in 1916 and that resemble the ones in barry's
33:03picture so here we've got three varieties that i think could be possibilities if you look actually
33:10at the original painting that you can see there in sort of fairly big heads of flowers the interesting
33:15thing about this is the variation in color from the strong pinks to the pale pinks
33:21debutante which is quite a lot paler than the one in painting and rather sparse flowers you see not so
33:27many flowers there dorothy perkins which is a slightly it's a classic old variety slightly sort of odd
33:33color and again a little bit on the sparse side but this is the one that i think is is most likely
33:38which is blush rambler which you can see you've got big heads of flowers which you can see in the
33:42painting there yes because this has got masses of flowers yeah i've got a image of a blush rambler
33:48here actually which was taken just a few years ago and what you can see there is the variation color
33:54so some flowers are really deep pink and they fade to a blush color and what makes you think this is a
33:59rambler as opposed to a climber the fact that it's going up and down the balustrades so ramblers have
34:06more lax stems which are easier to train uh along and up and down and if you try to train a climber
34:11which has rather stiffer stems downwards like that it would object and probably die off and colorwise
34:17the blush rambler yes it's not exactly right but there were a whole stack of varieties in that time
34:22most of them have not been grown anymore now and ramblers they only flower once don't they there's
34:28always exceptions that proves the rule but in those days ramblers practically all flowered only once
34:35so we think this painting could have been painted in june is that when a rambler like this would
34:40flower yes and possibly into early july but really after that it would have finished by then i mean we
34:45know that churchill was at hurstman zoo in august as well is there any chance that if this is a rambler
34:52as you believe it is it could have been flowering in august no august is much too late for those sort of
34:57ramblers so even if we can't be sure exactly what kind of rambler roses is and i appreciate that is a
35:03tall order when there are hundreds of them yeah you think looking at this it has to be a rambler
35:09because of the way it's festooned with flowers and it's cascading over this balustrade
35:13and if it is a rambler it could only really be flowering in june that fits quite nicely very
35:18nicely if it's very nicely i have to say before i met you i thought this was going to be an impossible
35:24ask given how many thousands of types of roses aren't there but this is i mean it's not scientific
35:31proof but it's really encouraging yeah thank you you are the roses man thank you
35:37so according to a world-renowned authority the painting appears to show herstman zoo garden in
35:44june or early july just as violet bonham carter and the inscription describe
35:51but we still can't prove that it was churchill who painted it
35:58but maybe this is where aviva's scientific investigations can help back at london's
36:04courthold institute she's been forensically studying barry's picture which is on canvas
36:10that has been later mounted onto board aviva and her colleague nathan daly have been using an maxrf
36:17scanner to identify the pigments used in the painting and to assess whether they were available
36:22during churchill's lifetime they've also taken an x-ray to see beneath the surface barry and i are
36:30joining them hi viva barry hi viva nice to meet you nathan hello to hear the results so what have
36:37you discovered well we've looked at the surface of the picture we've looked at the edges we've learned
36:42quite a lot about the painting but we've got some interesting things to show you firstly the x-ray
36:47one of the key things that i think you can see is that there are these little holes in the corner
36:52with a little circular shape it could be that some spaces were used to transport the picture which
36:58would mean that a slightly wet painting could be separated from something else perhaps for transport
37:04the pinholes aviva has seen in the x-ray might be from spacers that kept the picture protected while
37:11it was transported when wet this could be a vital clue if we can show that churchill often used this
37:19technique so the next thing that was really useful was element mapping by establishing the chemical
37:25elements present in the painting aviva and nathan are able to identify some of the pigments that were
37:31used for the different colored paints we can map the cadmium yellows in the in the lighter green foliage
37:38we also have mercury in the lovely red roses as well so pivotal question here is there anything that
37:46you've discovered that wasn't around in 1916 or 17 anything that could upset the apple cart with this
37:53picture there's nothing that we wouldn't find in a picture from 1915 or 16. okay well so far so good
38:02so what else i could see right from the beginning just by looking at the painting with low magnification
38:07under the microscope around the edges that there's bits of dried paint of a different color
38:11if aviva is right that there is more paint beneath the surface this could have big implications for
38:20our investigation if we go back to the x-ray and rotate that i think you might make out power-like feature
38:29there it's hard to make out just from the x-ray but by overlaying the zinc map on top of it which
38:41indicates where certain paint colors have been used shown here in pink the form becomes clearer and it
38:48doesn't appear to correspond to our garden scene we're looking at what could be another composition
38:55beneath in other words a an alternative view absolutely so we've over painted we've reused the canvas
39:03like many artists we know that churchill did reuse canvases canvas is all the better for past
39:10impressions he wrote and to be clear it it it would have been on the side that the first painting
39:17and then landscape landscape absolutely and the artist let's press churchill
39:23then moves it up for an alternative possible absolutely right you can see that the the
39:30composition is sort of bisected by hill line what looks like a sort of unfurling landscape and then
39:35bang in the middle that tower it's definitely a deliberate composition this and if you will away
39:43that the confusing bits of of the later painting it seems to me can you make it out barry what would
39:50you say it was uh hurstman zoo castle well it looks like a castle yeah yeah there are similarities
39:58between the underpainting and the front of hurstman zoo castle as viewed from the southeast with towers
40:04bridge over the moat and rising ground behind so this is an abandoned composition of the same general
40:13place hurstman zoo but he's replaced us with a view of the sunken garden that's quite a revelation
40:20this is all very promising a determined faker could after all have created a painting to match
40:26violet's description of churchill in the garden
40:32but would a forger have bothered with an underpainting of a scene like this
40:36probably not then again this isn't the knockout blow we're looking for either
40:51now it's my turn to meet up with barry to investigate a mystery we have yet to solve
40:58who wrote the inscription on the back
41:00handwriting analyst emma bach has been comparing it to the writing of our key suspects
41:08people violet bonham carter says were at hurstman zoo that weekend in june 1916. she's looked at the
41:15writing of violet hurstman zoo's owner claude lowther clementine churchill and winston churchill himself
41:23hi emma hi this is barry hi i love you to meet you emma very lovely to meet you too so it's barry's
41:32picture that we're investigating really exciting so where do you want to start oh i don't know i
41:37think we should start with winston's writing now we're looking at a copy here but winston's writing
41:43it's quite legible it's not nearly as legible as the inscription on the painting and i simply do not
41:51see enough similarities to make me think that it's been written by him at all well this is a blow
41:58according to emma there's no way churchill inscribed the back of the painting
42:02could it at least have been someone in his immediate circle i also looked at clementine's
42:08writing here but it i could rule her out it definitely wasn't her writing so you looked at
42:14violet bonham carti say yes now violet has got very interesting writing you've got these enormously
42:21wide spaces between the words actually you can see that barry can't you know all the big spaces in
42:26the writing and then these sort of loops very artistic this is lovely handwriting as well but it's not the
42:32same strike three just one suspect left so that leaves claude lowther who owned hersman's zoo
42:43exactly so what can you ascertain from what this becomes a little bit more interesting we're looking
42:47at the j there slightly angled to the left the down stroke and then you've got the much more angular
42:54going up and then the horizontal bar at the top is quite short but again angled up and then if we
43:02compare it to this one it is so similar can you see that man i can yeah yeah yeah if we look at the
43:10hersman's zoo if we look at the final letter x can you see that that bass line suddenly drops off a
43:17cliff a little bit it dips down and it's doing exactly the same here so the j and the x looks
43:24similar to the handwriting of claude lowther anything else if we look at the capital c can you see that
43:31there's a little curlicue which is the first stroke of the c and it's been slightly filled in but if we
43:38look at the claude lowther signature there is the same little curlicue at the top there so in your
43:47professional opinion then emma this writing on the back of barry's picture is the writing of claude
43:54lowther in my professional opinion it's been written by the same person and if we know that those are
44:01claude lowther's letters then that's been written by claude lowther this might just be the breakthrough
44:08we've been hoping for the inscription on the back of the painting matches the writing of claude lowther
44:14the man who invited churchill to stay at the hurstman zoo castle the spelling of hurstman zoo is
44:20the same as well so it's probably so it's probably gifted to to laofa from churchill
44:29oh you look a bit overcome with that
44:30it's exciting isn't it yeah oh that's good news graphology is not an exact science but this is
44:45what i look at day in day out well we're not there yet no but this is really encouraging late in the day
44:54we have a new lead if we check lists of lowther's possessions it's possible the painting may be there
45:03i'm not quite as upbeat we already have individual pieces of evidence that add up to a compelling case
45:11but there's no smoking gun which is what is all important for a churchill authentication
45:17and there's another stumbling block we're even struggling to find an authority to present our
45:23evidence to one that the art market will listen to there is an organization called the churchill
45:31paintings group consisting of members of the family and experts and they have got back to us saying that
45:39they're not in a position to be able to authenticate instead that we should go to a professional
45:45auction house so i suppose it's to a professional auction house we must now go
46:00when an artist's work significantly increases in value as churchill's has potential authenticators
46:06can become nervous so i'm heading to bonham's one of london's top auction houses
46:12to meet managing director india phillips hello india hi phillips how are you lovely to see you
46:18come in if the churchill paintings group won't authenticate is she willing to take on the
46:24responsibility so we found ourselves in a really quite a curious situation with barry's picture the
46:30paintings group have said while they're prepared to to offer expertise that they're not in a position or
46:37they're not prepared to authenticate they've handed that that over that that possibility
46:43to the auction houses it's not a position that we would personally want to take authenticating
46:49works by an artist such as churchill we really want to rely on the opinion of recognized experts
46:55people who've dedicated their entire lives and careers to the study of his work what is the impact
47:01therefore on the painting it is um clearly very frustrating for collectors who do own objects like
47:09this where there is so much evidence to to really support an attribution and yet the market remains
47:17nervous about accepting works that that don't let's say tick all the boxes so in a nutshell your advice
47:24to barry the owner my advice to barry is to wait patiently i think churchill is going to continue to
47:33be extremely sought after and with that i think will come a natural need at a certain point to look at
47:39works that say haven't been published in the catalogue resume and that an academic or somebody who has
47:46dedicated a lot of time to the study of churchill's paintings will come to the fore and will will take that
47:51responsibility it sounds as though you're almost handling it back to the paintings group i myself am
47:59waiting patiently that chat with india was really revealing we find ourselves in a bamboozling position
48:12on one hand we've got the official paintings group handing over to the auction rooms the right of
48:19authenticity the right to authenticate a painting but in the view of one leading auction house
48:25they don't want that right they're not ready for it
48:35and i'm not making great progress either we've identified claude lowther as a likely owner but i found
48:41no mention of the painting in the sale of the contents of herstman's zoo castle after his death in 1929
48:47nor is it in his will the usual lines of provenance have run cold
48:57what i have come across is an article in the eastbourne gazette august 1916 titled mr and
49:04mrs winston churchill and the author's talking about going to the ritz on friday for luncheon as
49:09he puts it and he says i heard they were just starting off for herstman's zoo where colonel claude
49:14lowther has lent them the charming picturesque cottage crucially for us the bit at the end is
49:19most interesting this is the one this is the cottage to which mr and mrs winston churchill have sent
49:25their children and where they are spending most of their weekends this is clear evidence the
49:33churchill family were using lowther's cottage at herstman zoo as a frequent holiday home that summer
49:38they would have been an ample opportunity for churchill to paint barry's picture
49:51back at the gallery i'm trying a new tag artist and churchill paintings expert paul rafferty
49:58is the man who discovered the photographic evidence that proved our previous churchill was indeed right
50:05he's been studying digital images of barry's picture and has come to the gallery to see it in person
50:11hello paul how nice to see you nice to meet you come through thank you he's also an advisor to the
50:16paintings group his support could be crucial so paul this is the picture in question now you're a man
50:24who's seen hundreds of churchills yes difficult question but what's your first instinctual response to
50:32this well i've studied this painting a lot this is the first time i've seen it in life and it's
50:36actually better in life it's wonderful i love it everything about this painting i see church
50:41so let's break it down what are the aspects that that shout churchill if i could show a couple of
50:46technical aspects this is a painting of the mill at saint george motel in normandy in the 1930s
50:52i see marks that he would make that are very specific to him in the sky there's like a snake
50:58wiggle he was right-handed so he's done this it was normally to block in an area he's been quite
51:03loose with this you can just see it here it's almost like a snake it's very distinctive yes but
51:10equally as compelling as i see it in the trees here also and it's more of a pronounced m like a series of
51:17ends so it's a very different squiggle here and i see that very distinctly in the blue it's very hard
51:22to pick up but it's there and it really shows a calligraphy a hand no absolutely it's when brush strokes
51:27become become like the handwriting of of of of the artist exactly he was very impressionistic he
51:32would just jump in very bold big brush and go anything else yes so if i could show you um this
51:39next painting this is of a similar time a year earlier at hoe farm one of the most pronounced
51:44things that sticks out to me are these flowers here it's absolutely just like with the cobalt violets
51:51the pinks and the whites loosely mixed on his palette and again being right-handed he would just
51:56pop them in and they're identical i mean they could look like the same painting if they were
52:01the same size so that is a an incredible comparison i mean you've made an extraordinarily powerful
52:08argument yes stylistically with the use of paint is there anything else in in the way that he used his
52:13canvases that we could look for well i believe that he used pin marks in the corners this is the way he
52:20would transport his paintings he would put pins in the corner two canvases pushed together and it
52:27separates them so that they allowed to dry without being disturbed and you can just see the cork there
52:32exactly and then you can see the imprint yes everything's right about it and many of the
52:36paintings have pin marks in the corners there would be a pin and a cork and it would separate the
52:41painting when he carried it home it would protect it this is encouraging those telltale pinholes that
52:47aviva noticed occur in other genuine works by churchill paul's research reveals that the
52:53politician turned artist had a particular way of transporting his pictures as an expert witness do
52:59you have any doubts at all i'm an advisor i don't give the authority for paintings but if i were to
53:05stand up and give my opinion i would feel very confident in being positive about this painting well
53:10i think what you said is is very reassuring and and i look forward to telling barry
53:19normally at this point we'd gather all our research together and submit the painting along
53:24with a dossier of information to the accepted authenticator but given no formal body is willing
53:31to pass judgment on barry's picture we've made contact with a leading member of the paintings group
53:36art historian barry phipps who's agreed to offer an informal opinion based on our evidence
53:46at the wallace collection a london museum which will present a major retrospective of
53:51churchill's paintings in 2026 i'm meeting barry to give him the news hi fiona hey barry lovely to see
53:59you and you right i've got his assessment here the continued fascination with churchill's paintings
54:07is a testament to the enduring impact of his work and artistic legacy the painting featured in the
54:13program is compelling and the remarkable depth of research invites a serious consideration that the work
54:20could indeed be by sir winston churchill well i should hope so however conclusive attribution requires
54:28documentary evidence linking the work to churchill's well-documented archive and with
54:34continued research it's entirely possible that such evidence may yet come to light
54:40so it's not a no no is it it's not no no it's not yes either no but it's but they haven't dismissed
54:48it that's the main thing far from dismissing he's taking it very seriously yeah it's still still
54:52i've still got hope for it this leaves the door open for more expertise on churchill new documents
55:03appearing which has happened in our own experience there's going to be an exhibition here of churchill's
55:08paintings next year here at the wallace collection and of course our program's going to go out so
55:12i'd say watch this space bang yeah i'll keep my fingers crossed beyond anywhere don't lose face no i won't
55:19no never no the story of this painting isn't over as a dealer i'm all too familiar with the situation
55:33in which barry now finds himself but he's not without options hello nice to see you nice to see you again
55:43although he will need to consider his situation very carefully so barry there are two valuations
55:50for this picture there's the valuation for those who have seen the evidence as i have and will see
55:59it in the program who are prepared to take a risk that this painting will be one day authenticated and i
56:09think that's between one and two hundred thousand pounds yeah sure
56:16or you wait i'm not quite sure how long i think it could be years yeah and you get a full authentication
56:24and the picture is worth six hundred thousand pounds or possibly more it's just just
56:31sorry i'm lost for words yeah yeah that's fine you know every time i look at it cheers me up lovely
56:35summer's day i definitely keep it for that i don't think it's a gamble i mean i just i just wait because
56:41i i truly believe in it it's such a wonderful thing yeah well and i admire your philosophy and your
56:47courage but i just like the glory of it being authenticating me owning it even with the full
56:52attribution if it made five or ten thousand pound more i still wait just knowing it's been authenticated
56:57so it's sounding this is more and more about the principle of getting it's the principle yeah of
57:02course the money's in poor but it's more the principle for me really well frankly good on you
57:06barry fingers crossed really good luck and i think i'd have made the same decision thanks
57:13for that appreciate you thank you if you think you have an undiscovered masterpiece or other
57:20precious object contact us at bbc.co.uk
57:25fake or fortune
57:50you
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