FAKE OR FORTUNE SE03E01 THOMAS GAINSBROUGH

the art world where paintings change hands full fortunes selling 95 million dollars but for every known masterpiece there may be another still waiting to be discovered my word they're known as sleepers international art dealer Philip mold hunts them down in the past we looked at pictures now almost you can look through using cutting-edge science and investigative research we've teamed up to find long-lost works by the great masters Wow the problem is not every painting is quite what it seems when these paintings were thought to be genuine how much were they're worth millions it's a journey that can end in joy bitter disappointment I can't get my head around it I really can't our latest investigation takes us into uncharted waters we're scouring the nation's museums and Archives for unrecognized works by one of Britain's finest artists Thomas Gainsborough get it right we can return to the nation a small trophy by the great artist games but with not one but two paintings to investigate we make links back over 200 years I can definitely a family resemblance with the eyebrows don't know what do you think I think yes we travel to America where Gainsborough's most famous works hold clues but there are pitfalls ahead as forensic tests raise unexpected doubts if this is early 19th century is dead in the water every art detective lives for the first glimpse of a lost masterpiece waiting for that moment can take a lifetime but Philip Mont and our head of research dr. Ben door Grosvenor believed they know exactly where to find unrecognized work by great artists an extraordinary new website called your paintings okay so what are the chances there are lost masterpieces or sleepers in there well there are over 200,000 paintings on this site to be able to choose from 17,000 of these have no artistic attribution at all they're just unknown artists and there's thousands more copies of things we took all follower of any of which could be the real thing this groundbreaking website a unique collaboration between the BBC and the public catalog foundation records every oil painting in public galleries across the UK the nation's entire collection they are our paintings our challenge is to find a lost national treasure a painting languishing unloved the weakened proof is in fact by one of our greatest artists but where to start I think in it's like melee of possibilities I'd like to suggest we refine our focus and go for one artist in particular Thomas Gainsborough say one of Britain's greatest artists for as long as I've been interested or not I've loved games breath and we have had some success in the past been dry with Gainsborough look at this cornered wood Gainsborough's long-established masterpiece now this is a Gainsborough I discovered it was seen nearby and you think there really could be lost gains for us amongst that lot well we've drawn up a shortlist of six possible pictures spread across the country but a screen can only tell us so much we got to see these things in the flesh in which case we can have to get out on the road games bro is famous for both portraits and landscapes and we found potential candidates for each online their spread will right across the country I'm starting with contenders in Leicester it's a very decent looking picture and Liverpool that probably is against but the problem is it's a major restoration job I'm joining Philip to assess a possible contender at the Courtauld Institute in London well I think we'd be failing in our duty if we didn't take this one further meanwhile bendure is in st. Albans like most of the paintings displayed on the website this portrait is hidden in the stores it's a really nice picture I think he's got channel seriously another contender lies deep in the basement of Wolverhampton art gallery it looks like a pastiche follower of Gainsbourg and finally we check out one in the stores of the Tate Gallery so this looks like a gamer to you a potential treasure will be lurking [Music] well now that we scoured the country let's think about which are our strongest contenders and given that games were painted both portraits and landscapes can we take one of each time that's a great idea and for my money it's that landscape at the Courtauld Institute I think it looks really interesting now that at the moment is thought to be by a follower of gains but assists someone who admired him and copied in but you think is actually by gains for himself I think it's got the real chance all right what about portrait then well I reckon this portrait of Joseph gates and ordinances quite a good one to look into it's currently got no connections against rewards whoever just says unknown artist but I think it's got a good chance I reckon that has we say in the tray at this picture is right so we can transform that then from a painting by an unknown hand to buy one of Britain's greatest masters that's a real coup well let's go there then okay so our two paintings our imaginary landscape by a follower of Gainsborough are the court old and the portrait of Joseph gate by an unknown artist at the st. Albans Museum and we are saying that by the end of this process we'll be able to say for at least one of the paintings that it is by Thomas Gainsborough good plan a face in a place but it's not gonna be easy because unfortunately he all his personal accounts were destroyed after his death so this is a case of actually looking at the physical evidence and looking at the brushstrokes working out whether it's by games were on those grounds rather than anything else and there's another challenge there's a man in the art world who we have to convince he is perceived as the authority on the works of Gainsborough his name is Hugh Bell see he sees one two possibly three pictures a week but of the hundred he sees Heon accepts one or two Hugh Bell see is a hard nut to crack the best way to understand what we're trying to find in our sleepers is to see Gaines birth at his best and we're better to do that than the National Gallery it's home to many wonderful games Burrus including my favorite painting anywhere in the world the sublime artist daughters chasing a butterfly there has never been a more perfect portrayal of childhood Gainsborough was born in 1727 in Sudbury in Suffolk the son of a well-to-do cloth merchant even as a child he displayed a prodigious talent and was soon painting portraits he rose to prominence when he moved to bath in 1759 the destination of choice for society keen to take the waters and use the opportunity to have their portrait painted although it was portraits that initially brought him Fame his true love was English landscapes and art form in its infancy in the mid 18th century it's an early work mr. mrs. Andrews that we've come here to study to look for clues that could help us understand our two paintings this was new wasn't it because prior to this portraits were were the things that people wanted with me yeah this is a new type of portraiture done with both people and landscape he had a supreme skill in capturing character and this is one of the qualities we should look for in our portrait quite unlikable couple of me they're not a couple of you warned - yes but they're posing they are being painted for posterity but there's just a little whiff of I don't know what is it humor sarcasm Gainsborough was renowned for his skill in painting fabrics he took great interest in the clothes that his citizen of Joseph Cape she's dressed as if she's going to a party and look at those slippers imagine what the mud will do to those maybe that's why she look so uncomfortable this painting is a sign of gains were becoming the artists of choice for the landed gentry of aristocracy our sitter fit the bill as a piece of social commentary is so fascinating isn't it because when he married her she brought into the marriage a lot of land and made him considerably wealthier and so it's as if he's saying here's my wife hmm slope short and flat-chested slightly sound looking but nonetheless here's my wife and he is my land and although young gains rate was already showing a deep connection to the English landscape pushing the boundaries of what was possible what began to get here is an artist who has got a natural ists feel for landscapes really deserved it but with a poet's eye as well there's among tidiness with his little observations or things like this falling over Stoops there's trees in the background that's a bend and twist did the fresh-faced artist who painted this grow into the man capable of painting something as bold as our candidate imaginary landscape there are Clues here each of our two contenders is going to require its own investigation our journey starts back at the Courtauld Institute to the home of imaginary landscape for years it was thought to be by Gainsborough but then twenty years ago it was stripped of its attribution and since then has been languishing as a late follower of Gainsborough in other words by someone who copied him maybe as much as a century later I'm drowning Karen sehr curator of paintings at the quarto to start the investigation the first step is to remove the backing to show the stretcher immediately we reveal a label saying Humphrey clue perhaps to a previous owner but I'm most excited about seeing the picture itself liberated from its clunky frame and without its protective glass I mean it's fluent it feels impressionistic because when one of your men was downstairs in the gallery absolutely it's an intuitive type of painting something that almost seems to come from his imagination do you think absolutely if this is games bro you're not saying it exactly it would definitely be from the end of his career in the 1770s in the 1780s where he let his pilot and his brushstroke kind of roam freer than he had previously it's such a bold experimental painting and now that I'm getting up close to look at it I'm sure than ever that it reads like a Gainsborough the audacious brushstrokes the intuitive understanding of nature that the style of the vegetation they all bear his hallmarks but this is also my first chance to study one of the paintings more unusual features imagine landscape is not delight most oil paintings be painted on paper which has then been stuck onto the canvas rather painted directly onto the canvas we know that this unusual technique was used by Gainsborough say could this be useful evidence with all these things going for it I'm beginning to wonder why experts decided that this was not by Gainsbourg indeed Hugh Bell see saw it ten years ago but didn't reinstate it I think there was the feeling that it was a little bit different both a technique and in style maybe a little bit too loose and also he was such a popular artist many artists painted in his manner and so there was thought to be by one of those very very late followers so even as late as the 1920s that replaced this picture over a hundred years after Gainsborough's death which doesn't seem right to me I mean in my bones I feel this is by Gainsborough but it's Ginsberg is most experimental and my only hope is that Hugh Bell see who saw the painting didn't see it as weed is out of its frame it's very different we've really got to make the case for this get it right we can return to the nation a small trophy by the great artist Gainsbourg back at the gallery bender is hot on the paperwork trail of imaginary landscape rather helpfully our imaginary landscape already comes a certain amount of paperwork the first thing is a letter from the Courtauld Institute dated 1989 to the come on our collection that's the body that looks after all the paintings in government buildings and it says I've given thought to the Prime Minister's request now at the time mrs. Thatcher was Prime Minister and I'm willing to extend a loan for a further five years from Jan in 1990 so this is mrs. Thatcher saying I like this painting and I'd like to have it for a little bit longer in Downing Street very nice to have and we can go back a bit further because I've also got a bill of sale here from & Sons famous art dealers dated 1946 and they were selling the picture too if I count Lea Ferrum who was a founder of the quarter collection and they call it landscape by Thomas Gainsborough oils on paper mounted on canvas and it has a little bit of provenance from the collection of the late AP Humphrey that's the name of Philip so on the back of the painting whose direct and sister William Humphrey was five times mayor of Sudbury s where Ginsberg was and a patron of Gainsborough so we've got to rather or gust bits of paper saying this is by Gainsborough and a possible link back to gays Perez place of birth with work on the landscape under way I'm following the trail of evidence to discover who painted our other contender the portrait Joseph gate was once mayor of st. Albans the painting is currently listed as artist unknown I've come to the County Archives in Hartford which has a wealth of information about life going back hundreds of years here st. Albans are just a few miles down the road and I'm hopeful they'll be more about the former Mayor Joseph gate just because he was a mayor doesn't necessarily make him important enough to have a leading artist paint his portrait first a newspaper from just over a hundred years ago mentions the gate family death of major game sign of an ancient family so this is not all about the gate family by the demise of major Gabe is removed the senior representative the oldest family in the county whose record goes back to about 1400 Oh another early reference the name of Gabe is included in the list of those who had to provide course less as a kind of armor in 1587 and 1588 at the time when the invincible Armada attacked England goodness me the archive also holds a detailed biography of our man Joseph Gabe here we are is said to have been born I love that his set have been born knows Misaki Shah the 23rd of May 1720 in the parish of st. bride's London his admitted degrees in being then a Middle Temple so he was a lawyer and was mayor of st. Albans here we go in 1746 1761 and 1797 he died the 9th of April 1801 aged 82 years he lived the age of 82 now this is encouraging if he was mayor three times and a leading lawyer Joseph was clearly a man of distinction and came from a significant local family but as I look further there's a surprising and worrying letter relating to our portrait from more recent times 15th May 1968 this is from David Gabe day mr. beretta says I'm writing to you officially as mayor to confirm the verbal arrangements which we have made concerning the portrait of Joseph cape the portrait is on loan with its frame to the city of st. Albans for an indefinite period subject to termination by either side at one month's notice so hang on a minute this painting has been loaned to st. Albans and to the public catalog foundation they didn't actually own it at some point in the past this letter has been separated from the portrait of Joseph gate in saint albans museum that means the curator Catherine Uli is not aware of its contents and the painting could be recalled by the family at any time if it's not on public display at the moment it's in a store cupboard I've got to go to st. Albans to pick up the painting and take it back for our investigation so I can give her the news at the same time unfortunately documentation has got lost along the way and separated from the object because obviously if that was something that we were aware of we might have did differently sure the implications are pretty serious if the gate family wanted to they could take the portrait back even sell it and the museum would lose a painting and it would disappear from public view does it change the way you feel about it no no I still think it's a really lovely painting and I think it's something that the public should get to see whether that's through the your paintings website or if it's on display in some way we're going to need to contact the gate family to clear all this up but in the meantime I want to know what Philip will make of it after casting an experienced eye over it I bring you myrrh Joseph gate exciting what do you think it's just that it's just that sort of staggering difference between something you see on a screen something your imagination attaches to and then it's there in front of you I suppose the first response is it still looks like again good well that's a good start but it looks like against brevets that suffered there's a problem with this picture its condition someone at some point as how'd it go at the face they over cleaned it they take off the top layer of paint and this makes it is strange-looking and it's given him a slightly sort of ghoulish appearance it takes it away from from what could or should be a Gainsborough appearance and then there's the shape an oval is not that common in the late 18th century day and only associate layers with gatesboro but there are things that do look like games bro I mean the clothes there's a grace there's a fluency that we saw in mr. mrs. Andrews which I find quite convincing is this picture by Gainsborough I think it probably is can we prove it well that's another matter all-together [Music] we've established that the gapes were an important local family but there's no paper trail linking the portrait of Joseph gape to Gainsborough that could be a serious problem if we're to get our painting fully authenticated but in this instance we have access to the person who will ultimately judge our paintings Hugh Bell see he has the ultimate responsibility for compiling the definitive catalogue of all Gainsborough's portraits known as the catalog resume so I want to meet him can he guide us as to what might convince him to accept our works as true Gainsborough's especially the portrait when it comes to authenticating games but what kind of clues might we look for other than rush strokes say well I suppose you're looking for a bit of jigsaw there are obviously things like the costume that often gives you a good lead to dating you look at the likelihood that of Sitter being where the artist might be which is an important point you look at how it relates to other pictures what might have happened to it since it was painted but with games were there's very little documentary evidence well why is that because I suspect as soon as he died his widow just put everything in a large skip outside his house why would she do that because she felt he was an art design rather than an artist I suspect she was rather a grand woman who had rather more airs and graces than was useful to gain his reputation but he was appreciated in his lifetime wasn't he so I would have assumed the records would be kept there is no known letter to Gainsborough that exists not a single one not a single one there are several letters from him and they are a delight some of them are so vulgar that they were actually destroyed in the 19th century sadly Iwata said yeah this isn't that sad so it's not gonna be an easy one then when it comes to trying to trace the the certainly the paperwork of a Gainsborough the Bluenose it's not at all are you looking forward to a quest to seeing the paintings no of course yes it's always exciting that's what keeps me ke the way Phillip built up Hugh Bell see I was expecting this very intimidating character and in fact he was rather gentle and rather genial so that was a pleasant surprise I suspect that will all change once we see those paintings under his nose and the day of reckoning comes and judging from what he had to say I'm not sure it's going to be that easy to persuade him we'll see well at least now we know what it will take if we're to convince Hugh Bell see I'm hoping Joseph gapes descendants can provide some clues to back up our investigation the gate family was once one of the richest and most important in st. Albans st. Michael's Manor was built as the family home in 1586 it's now a hotel but I'm meeting two of Joseph's descendants they're Judy Pearson the owner of the portrait of Joseph gate and her aunt Diana Bennett she remembers st. Michael's mirna when it still belonged to her family Diana do you remember this portrait hanging in this house no I was a child so I probably wouldn't have noticed I'm afraid I can definitely see a family resembles with the eyebrows yes the arch of the brows there we've established that the painting is on long-term loan but I want to know how and why that loan came about in 1968 and whether there's ever been any suggestion that the painting might be by Gainsborough the marason tall burns mr. Brett at the time wrote to my father and said that they were putting together a whole lot of history facin tall burns and that Joseph's cape had been mayor three times which is very unusual over a period of 50 years and they wondered if they could have a portrait to hang off him and the feeling is that this was painted as far as we know we don't know who painted it by somebody when he was mayor for the second time so he sent that to sent organs for them to have on long term loan but we never had thought it was against Perez can be really interesting to see diana has some more helpful family information for me not only was joseph gate a senior lawyer at the Middle Temple in London but his brother married into the family that owned nearby Gore and brie house a home with his own collection of great works they had and have a fantastic collection therefore Joseph gate will have become accustomed to seeing beautiful portraits by the great painters so he had all sorts of reasons for knowing who was good portrait painters this is progress we've learned the subject of our portrait was not just a man of means but also of culture it seems increasingly likely that his place in society was such that his portrait would have been painted by an artist of note but we're still a long way from proving that artist was Gainsborough if it does turn out to be by Gainsborough what will you do perhaps get it hung again somewhere might be good I really don't know I mean we're not there to grab it back and just make money out of this and just silly because it's by against but I think it should be restored properly and then we would have to think what we did with him whilst Vienna continues her inquiries about the portrait bender is looking for more information on our other Gainsborough contender of the painting called imaginary landscape worryingly it was downgraded from a Gainsborough some years ago and is currently considered to be a late copy but my hunch is that this is wrong been dog has come to the wit library here they hold reference material relating to two million paintings most major artists a catalogue here there are photographs of the pictures receipts with dates of sale evidence of ownership it's a sweet shop for researchers so I found our picture our court old picture here in the files there's three photos of it one minutes in the Courtauld Institute court Gainsborough another one when it was in the lis collection he's the guy donate to the court home also cool Gainsborough and another one when it was sold of Christie's in 1946 has a Gainsborough which is quite reassuring in one way because it means that once upon a time it's been taken seriously as against me and I've got a drawing as well which is quite interesting cuz it's shows us a comparable arrangement of the figures very close to the little group of figures we go on a picture these figures are so similar to me they have to come from the same artist's brain evidence is definitely mounting up but would we be able to prove that imaginary landscape is indeed by Gainsborough and knocked the late copy our next move takes us to a location just a short walk from Gainsborough's birthplace in Sudbury we come to the setting for Gaines was most famous early landscape cornered wood for a bit of an experiment colored wood is a work of enduring beauty and immense significance Gainsbourg was barely into his 20s when he painted it yet it helped establish English landscape as a art form in itself inspiring artists like constantly 250 years later this is still clearly the place Gainsbourg painted but Gainsborough never let reality intrude too much in his search for the perfect composition many believe he moved the church to create a focus for his painting as he grew older so his taste for risk and experimentation grew and the way that he painted later landscapes took him even further in that direction look at this so early on Gainsborough absolutely cracks nature he he knows how to portray as as far as he needs and then as he gets older his imagination begins to take over but it was not completely his imagination he needed props to to make it all work for him such as builders like this most like that it's a fir tree so this is a model he would he would make models to to create a landscape that he could then paint and he would work out the most picturesque the most beautiful the most dramatic way of making nature work better so he'll get something like for example this piece of broccoli what you need to do with abuse of rock is just rip away a few of the leaves or few of thee and look already from a distance that's being into it like a tree agreed yes they look more convincing anyone could do okay he would then use the rock behind so the rock becomes basically a sort of mountainous a tree against it like that and then why are you eating it coal is brilliant full of cliff so big boulders boulders like that he would add to this little models of horses little models of sheep I mean it was a it was a proper game of soldiers he was playing when you look at the tree in the middle of the imaginary landscape it doesn't look like a twig writ large rather than the tree doesn't because it's only got this branches at the very very top which is not what you'd expect in the tree indeed and and when you know his secret tricks it's almost like too much information when you can you can see the props but it wasn't just a question of choosing the right object it was also a question of working out the light and get the right light as its brought to the rest and to do that he would paint by candlelight creating atmosphere that could be poetically intense you could see the effect of this technique in the imaginary landscape particularly in the way the light falls upon the rocks it's uncanny to think the Gainsborough may have created our picture in just this way [Music] we're all meeting back at the gallery for an update on our two paintings and to look at some new evidence we've uncovered Raisa where have we got to and when we're making some progress not we with imaginary landscape it was certain interest and see how that model worked in corn hardwood and then those figures in the Gainsborough drawings in the Witte lab in a similarity with a figs that magic landscape was also really encouraging and when it comes to the portrait of Joseph gave during the course of my research I came across another portrait of Joseph gave a later portrait when he was mayor for the third time in say tall burns and this one painted by by Thomas Lawrence he's one of Britain's greatest artists I mean his paintings are up in Windsor Castle er I've seen them I love the feather when you put them together you can't mistake those eyebrows candy definitely the same chap yeah BC that's really good because it shows that gape was a discerning man when it came to to art and getting his portrait painted now in our search for clues about the game picture we've commissioned the full range of technical analysis x-ray infrared and ultraviolet photos here and these are going to be really helpful for one crucial thing because the big problem that our gate picture is that it is an oval Gainsborough didn't paint ovals however what he did paint was an oval within a larger square picture if that makes sense that he would paint an oval and then paint around the edges in black now if I show you an ultraviolet photograph of our gate painting have a little look in the bottom left hand corner can you see the sort of dark smudgy area which is over paint look at that someone later on has extended mr. Gabe's arm now why they done that if I show you the x-ray you can see at the bottom of the armor there's actually a definitive sort of end line there yes you can see where the arm finishes just for the edge of the painting now the reason that someone has extended mr. gates arm it's because originally this picture was in fact the square of campus with the oval painted in the middle and then the corners painted out darker and then someone came along and wanted to cut it into an oval it got the scissors out snip snip snip and they left it looking like a bit of a stump so they had to paint on an extra bit of harm to make it look normal and that's what we've got so originally our painting would have looked like a perfectly standard Keynes report tree like this that explains it that explains why it's an oval when it shouldn't be for Gainsborough it should not be that shape someone's had a go at it brilliant that is brilliant and what we need to do now is take some of that technical fairy dust and sprinkle it over your imaginary landscape and what I suggest to do is start with the paper that it was painted on and take a look at that I've got to get a California quite shortly on business and I'm going to use the opportunity to look at a couple of America Gainsborough's which I think could be quite a useful comparison to create the painting imaginary landscape we know the artists use paper which is stuck to the canvas so I've asked paper expert Peter Bauer to look at our picture and see if the paper itself can help establish the date of the painting first a lesson in how old paper was made so what should we be looking for a piece like this for example well in his lifetime most most paper was laid which is formed on a mould made of wires if we look at this image of forming a sheet of paper this is the Batman and he's holding a paper mold which has these metal wires on it he dips that into a laptop and gives it a shake when the water starts to drain out and as you transfer it off this impression remains in the sheet the crucial thing is that over the years the width of the wires varied making it possible to use these grids to date the paper and help prove this was painted during Gainsborough's lifetime now can we see any of these these chain lines and laid lines well one of the problems with oil and paper is the paint layers obscure the profile of the sheep but luckily the artist has done us a favor and he's worked on the wide soft of the sheet which is more prominent here there are tiny indications of the late ones that are below the paint and but the paint is making them visible and what about dating the paper to the right kind of a line 1770s 1780s hemlines are about 27 28 millimeters apart which is an 18th century profile it's late 18th century mid to late the wire profile that is visible is right that's promising my business trip to Los Angeles allows me to take the opportunity to do more work on the court holes in Mandarin read landscape it may seem a surprising place to investigate a British artist but over a third of all Gainsborough's are now in America many bought by new money in the early 20th century this is the Huntington gallery in Pasadena established in 1928 by real estate and railroad magnate Henry Huntington he was at the forefront of the American drive to collect British art of the 18th and 19th centuries this is now home to some of Britain's greatest works the most famous of which is Gainsborough's Blue Boy [Music] I've spent my life admiring Gainsbourg as a result of my studies I've been able to find many lost works by the painter the cottage door is one of Gainsborough's most famous later paintings two very similar works were long thought to be copies by another hand but in the past year I've succeeded improving now that they're all by Gainsborough shedding new lights on his working processes three paintings on the same theme one of those that I had to convince was the man who will judge our two contenders Hugh Bell see by happy coincidence he is the curator of this exhibition in Pasadena that is sharing these three paintings together for the very first time thank you very pleased with it it looks lovely this has seen these three pictures together like like like three brothers what do you think it tells us about Gainsborough I mean what's interesting really is that he sorted out this design in the picture that's in Huntington now and then he was clearly very satisfied with that composition and decided that he play around with it another two times and those are the other two pictures here and both of them have different emphases this one I think the figures of it and the tree on the right are particularly strong whereas in this one the tree on the left is particularly good did you work the same way with the imaginary landscape the figures that Bendel's saw on the sketch at the Whitney Berry suggests he might have been working on another recurring theme this is the perfect opportunity to let you know which landscape were looking at and of course to see whether he's willing to reconsider his previous verdict so here's the picture yes I do it's from the quartered Institute yeah and you recall I remember saying there and I remember thinking it was well worth looking at a little deeper right it's a very against risk phim without any doubt at all and it's on paper as far as I remember yes yeah I'm very happy to look at that wall that would be very interesting well thank you these three takes on the same theme but with subtle differences demonstrate the experimentation of Gainsborough and seen the together helps me believe more than ever in our very experimental painting in memory landscape I can remember so well they excitement and relief I mean genuine relief getting those pictures proved and I remember now having seen them again what it was the vert was the characteristic of gates brothers so convinced me and it was the feeling of one color beneath another glaze that the warm ground on which the the paint is is painted shining through acting a bit like a source some of us have poured over a pudding or whatever but but done with absolute expert skill and modulation in a case of Gainsborough we've established that later in his career Gainsborough was happy to create versions of his successful paintings but he always used a similar technique first he would lay down an undercoat for warm color to this he would add layers of half strokes and transparent strokes allowing the undercoat known as the ground to show through if we can find this telltale warm ground in imaginary landscape it would help argue for its authenticity and the best way to look for it is a microscope I've returned to the Courtauld where head of conservation Aviva burn stock has agreed to study the painting she's using a high-powered microscope that can magnify the image up to 400 times and give us close-up images of the brush strokes of paint layers but will we see the warm ground layer that I'm hoping for [Music] it's been painted very quickly and directly with a very few strokes of white and mixed with pink and and yellow for the head and the flesh paint this is the figure kneeling by the water and you can also see the ground coming through which is a nice light tan color whoa that's exactly what I was hoping we would find all this surely this is Gaines most characteristic technique of one thin layer on top of another to give that sort of warmth now that's good but it's just the beginning of the process we need to test the chemical makeup of the other pigments used in the painting we're interested in the blue paint in the distant mountains blue is useful to test because twenty years after Gainsborough's death the new pigment was introduced called cobalt blue replacing the traditional pigments smoked any trace of cobalt blue in the original paint would be bad news placing the picture after Gainsborough's death suggesting this is a late copy after all and here's a lovely area which shows the blue pigment does it look to you like a games but blue well my first instinct says it says cobalt blue which couldn't be my Gainsborough forgive me for saying so but I do hope your instincts are wrong if this is early 19th century is dead in the water however this is just looking under the microscope and it's not the ideal and definitive way of looking at blue pigment I thought we were almost home and dry with a ground layer proving correct but now we're gonna have to wait for further tests to the blue paint which just may show that the painting was done after Gainsborough's death [Music] while Phillip hopes for a good result from the paint tests I've come to bath where gains were lived and worked I'm visiting the fashion Museum on the trail of our other painting the portrait of Joseph gate we know Gainsborough was very particular about the costumes his sisters warm I'm hoping curator rosemary Harden may help us confirm a date for our portrait from the clothes Joseph's cape is wearing the thing which I was drawn to immediately as is the coat because in the 18th century men's coats dramatically changed style so at the beginning of the 18th century there would be no color whatsoever so in this portrait here by Ramsey from the 1740s absolutely no collar at all but around this time things were changing and it was all inspired by country we're so here's a portrait here have a man on his horseback but you can see he has a collar to his coat of turnover collar which is starting to look like our mountains coat here he said he didn't like the height of fashion I have to say he certainly isn't I mean this is very definitely not fashionable dress the next picture Rosemarie shows me is a familiar friend which can really help our quest in the very another very famous gaze for portrait mr. and mrs. Andrews which is dating from 1750 I had a look at this international gallery it's such a fabulous portrait and you can see there's a turnover lapel where this part of a coat and then if you move on a little bit into the 1760s this is a portrait of a chap who's who's a young man he's going off on the Grand Tour of Italy and he is wearing a coat with this wide turn over color which is very very similar to the one that we've got here but we've also got this buttonhole here edged with metal thread braid and here is a portrait of Warren Hastings he was the governor of India and this is from slightly later in 1766 and here we have that wonderful great big buttonhole there edged metal thread braid this is a real fashion today than that isn't it it indeed so that is starting to put the date certainly the clothes in the 1760s but how can you be that precise because I've had this Chuck if more years and I care to remember and people could hang on to that code for 10 20 years presume because there's nothing wrong with it and it was perfectly serviceable as my mother would always say and therefore this could have been painted later just because he was hanging onto his coat yeah I'm and I think that's that's a very interesting point but I think the crucial theory is thing is you're having your portrait painted so you want to be in the 30 minutes present yourself absolutely in the up to minute make sure he wouldn't be wearing his old jacket would he I think you know Beaufort you're quite right mr. Tinley Gainsbourg was a firm believer in in his sitters wearing the clothes of the day but also sometimes he did give his sitters clothes to wear and there's one famous supporter at the Blue Boar and he he provided the clothes for that so yes maybe this coat had belonged to Gaines when he lent it to gate for the portrait possibly and what about the rest of his clothes this shirt and that the cravat he's absolutely right for that 1760s date so that seems to confirm this portrait dates from the 1760s the time Gainesville was at the height of his fame painting portraits in bath it's looking increasingly plausible that Joseph's Cape could have turned to Gainsborough to immortalize his second term as mayor of st. Albans but back in London the painting imaginary landscape is in trouble Aviva has carried out pigment analysis that has thrown up the possibility that the paint could come from after James was death we are heading into the labs of King's College for the decisive test Aviva is analyzing a tiny sample of the blue paint in an electron microscope it's light astronomy is moving into the surface of the planet this will tell us once and for all whether this blue is smoked which could have been used by Gainsborough or cobalt blue only available after his death you're looking a bit nervous only cobalt blue contains aluminium and any trace of that and we're done for I'm keeping my fingers crossed we don't find any now the peaks are coming out for different elements I said a minyan yeah it's aluminium and cobalt together so it looks like it is cobalt blue isn't that incredibly sad it rules out games for I'm incredibly surprised but but I suppose also a bit humbled gains but is a huge inspiration to me he's either figure to who I feel really connected and it's possible that perhaps I don't know that that man of inspiration as much as I thought I did time to head back to the gallery and prepare our findings for the verdict [Music] time is running out and we've got to show these paintings that he will see it very soon so how are we doing obviously not quite so great on the imaginary landscape I just can't understand it I mean to me it just breathes gains breath I mean the whole design of the landscape you know the way he sort of constructed these things partly from his imagination the way the figures are done the way it sort of glows I mean that's all the stuff that identify with us with this artist to whom I'm deeply attached and yet and yet the damn science says that it was painted after gaspra died sometimes you might just be wrong well I know Philip is my employer so you might think I'm being biased but I've never known it to be wrong on case Pro ever could this be the first time good man actually thank you for that let's park that for a minute and let's talk about the portrait of Joseph game see if we can agree on that and I spent some hours in bath at the fashion Museum they're looking at that is wig his hat and the coat that he's wearing and dating that portrait to Gainsborough's time through his clothing well you can give me your fashion view then on this picture which is a very close portray to our Gabe is of a sitacles so John Durban it was the mayor of Bristol and it's a fully accepted Casper and it's currently hanging in a museum in America they are almost identical at me I think because this is where it's so interesting because portrait painters hit upon a design a sort of formula that can work which we shall often repeat and we've got another one a secured games bruh to compare it with now that looks pretty good identical it doesn't in the shape is very interesting isn't it the oval shape yes the John Durban picture is in a described oval as our gape would have been and I think I might have another bit of a clincher I'm quite pleased with this one because our man cape was a member of the Society of Arts in London from the late 1750s onwards the Society of Arts was a bit like the Royal Academy today it's the main exhibition space for artists now Thomas Gainsborough as a young lad was exhibiting in the Society of Arts from 1761 homeless so we've got a little bit of a scene of the crime going on where they could both have met they could have shaken hands well that's all good so we can present the portrait of Joseph gate then to Hugh BRC with the degree of confidence Shane Battier Toshi landscape for it but then on the other hand you are convinced aren't you still that it's by Gainsborough so now we need to see what you both yes to say we brought both paintings to Gainsborough's house in Sudbury where his birthplace is now a museum we're presenting our evidence to Hugh Bell see he'll be the ultimate judge of our work the artist of the portrait of Joseph cape is currently unknown to attach the name Gainsborough to it and upgrade the listing on the your paintings website would be a real coup the painting is on loan at the st. Albans Museum where the curator Katherine Uli is looking after it so this is the moment we're gonna find out excited nervous yeah really excited I think it would be a really big thing the imaginary landscape belongs to the Courtauld Institute Gainsbourg was the first artist ever purchased for the collection Karin ser is the curator of paintings there and she's been following our work on the painting every step of the way it was purchased as a Gainsbourg but in the past 20 years it was considered a very very late follower so he it had been effectively d attributed it had been turned basically from an eighteenth-century picture into a fairy late 19th century work it's time to find out what Hugh has decided so Hugh were in Gainsborough's house we've got two potential Gainsborough's do you feel the coast of Gainsborough looking over your shoulder on moments like this I've been in this house and not say yes he's been looking over my shoulder well okay so now it's find out time then what are your views first on the math game I mean it's not quite the tonality that you would expect I've Gainsborough at this stage the handing of the paint just isn't subtle enough it's just a bit more labor than games would manage I think it's against for drawing that has been over painted by somebody else ah so you concede then that this was initially a work by Gainsborough yes if you look at this one which is in the Met you can see that it's got exactly the same sort of vocabulary with the wispy tree the large mess on the left the smaller one on the right it's all the same sort of vocabulary so what you believes is that imaginary landscape is a sketch by Gainsborough to which colour and paint have been added maybe that's something I should have considered but I'm fantastically relieved to hear that the name Gainsborough has now been formally reattached but if it's a gains for drawing that's been painted over by somebody else do you say it's by Jay as breathing well as I've cataloged a great many against rose and all say his drawings I suppose I should really include that in their drawings catalog that's again yes games so what do you think of that I think it's so interesting because for earlier artists you talk about after a design by a certain artist and it sounds like this is exactly what's happening in this case what's really important is for us to be able to catalog it correctly and it hasn't been so far so that's wonderful thank you and hang it now perhaps I think yes that would be really interesting for our visitors so yes I think we'll put it proudly on our walls with the right naval with the right label absolutely we have long labels and we can explain and detail exactly how this work came about right the portrait then the portrait is about 1762 and it would have originally been a rectangular picture but with a faint oval inside the rectangle and I suspect this black mark at the bottom here is the edge of the famed oval that was in the original so who do you think painted it Oh games about you're a certain is that oh yes [Music] all of this is entirely gains whenever that's good quiet so what do you make of that oh it's really exciting this was a painting that had an untitled artist say and yes I have some words attributed to have Thomas Gainsborough is even better yeah I mean this is a real promotion from Joseph Cape air isn't it unknown artist to one of Britain's greatest artists and I can see the colour coming back into his cheeks so now that he has been promotion this way presume he's gonna come out of the stork up we would love to have him back out on display we'd obviously have to speak to you the family that still owns the painting yes because that's the one uncertain thing isn't it yes it's been on indefinite loan and to the city of st. Albans for quite a while so I have to see what they say well it's back to the gallery for our final job to let Judy Pearson Joseph gates descendent know the results of our findings Judy last time we met we were in the house where this portrait hung originally it's been quite a journey since then don't quite a lot of work with it as you know the art world can be a very unpredictable business and this was a very protracted process but I can tell you that your ancestor has been christened with an artist is Thomas Gainsborough Wow it's very exciting indeed at the moment it's on on loan to the say tapas museum are you happy certainly for the time being for it to continue to be on loan to st. Thomas Museum yes I think we are well sure they'll be very pleased to have it well I just in case you think we're making this all up I can't actually prove to you this is my case but by showing you something on the website over here this is the your paintings website and if I show you you can see Joseph's Cape there is it used to say by unknown artists it's just by toys games from Thomas Gainsborough it's quite something isn't it well thank you thank you for all that huge amount work thank you for finding it I think that's that's very quick we would never have known I'm so glad it paid off and if I click over to our imaginary landscape with the court hope you can see that that's being changed to by Thomas Gainsborough reworked by a later 19th century English well that's two new christenings and just imagine how many more there might be on there this could keep us busy for years and if you'd like to try your hand at being an art detective why not visit the your paintings website at BBC doc code at UK slash arts slash your paintings you'll be amazed at what you can find [Music] you you

Channel: mightwenotbehappy

Views: 286,507

Keywords: THOMAS GAINSBROUGH, ART, HISTORY, FAKE OR FORTUNE, PHILLIP MOULD, FIONA BRUCE

Id: AIDnPYJ0iRE

Length: 58min 58sec (3538 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 31 2018