FAKE OR FORTUNE SE2EO3 EDGAR DEGAS

ah the art world a place about rageous Fortune 95 selling at 95 million dollars but beneath the surface looks danger I probably turned out about 200 face over a six seven year period your committee for and scream international art dealer Philip mold uncovers sleepers pictures with a secret past now he's bringing his detective skills to solve more mysteries locked in paint in the past we looked at pictures now almost you can look through them I'm Fiona Bruce as a journalist I'm used to hunting for facts we're teaming up for a new series of investigations [Music] this case will be one of the most challenging we've ever faced as we try and prove that this little dancer was painted by one of the world's most famous artists our investigation takes us from the ballet in Paris is it to Germany and the biggest forgery scandal of modern times when these paintings were thought to be genuine how much were they worth millions with cutting-edge science and new research can we persuade the world's experts to accept it as a genuine work if you disobey it's a very good one this is I think on a knife-edge [Music] Mayfair London weather very well-heeled come in search of jewelry fashion and fine art fancy bit of window shopping I wouldn't say no many a multi-million pound deal has taken place behind these doors so what do you think of that dream your little money I could look rather tasty above your fireplace I guess how much that is I don't know you know I hate guessing what would you say north of a million pounds it's amazing is it just think it's a piece of canvas and then just the power of the artists imagination and you get a value on it yeah but it's also because the art world's authorities agree on its authenticity I mean this can be of a street of broken dreams oh if every picture that's fully accepted there are hundreds with question marks above their head which is where we come in Patrick rice and his son Jonathan have made an appointment to show us a painting that has had a question mark over it for decades honestly Patrick Fiona nice to meet you but they believe it's an important work by one of the world's most sought-after artists my word [Music] Digga it says yes gosh well it certainly looks like a taker one of his dancers well that's a typical day girl subject isn't it dances by dega I mean it's one of those great cliches up there isn't it yes well it's interesting because obviously they then in some ways their main subject or the double bass is sort of coming up in the front which gives it a rather dark quality but I think it's um it's very interesting painting and how did you come by certainly what looks like a painting by one of the great impressionist masters well my father bought it at the end of the wall from nervous which was an art dealers yes and presume it wasn't you know no I think it probably was about the right sort of market price for time coupons 800 after the war yes equivalent of 20,000 pounds in today's money Patrick's father Edward Dennis rice was a gentleman farmer from Kent who married an American heiress in the 1930s the family fortune gradually disappeared at the end of the 20th century and the painting is one of the few surviving mementos of a more prosperous age but dancers blue the blue dancer doesn't appear in the official record of Degas works the catalog resume and one expert who examined it in 2009 expressed doubts about its authenticity what didn't he like about the painting there were a few things the the face of the dancer which I think he called trivial the position of it I think he said it was not a formal pose and the draftsmanship of the heads of the double bass and then the the other one I guess that the the bigger one would be the signature did he not think it looked like a dagger signature he had problems with it without the catalogue raisonné without the expert backup it's extremely difficult to sell if this is digger what's it was well it's easier to ask would it be worth if it weren't bodega and probably a few hundred bands yeah as a work by dega possibly how familiar you know so if you succeed in proving that this is by dega or what what do you have a mind for it well it was handed on to me by my sister in order to help my pond the side of the family and you know it is very valuable and the best way that it can be useful tell families to sell it I think whatever happens it's going to be extremely interesting to clear up the whole mystery [Music] the stakes couldn't be higher for Patrick's painting Tiger is one of the most popular artists in the world he's been the subject of blockbuster exhibitions and his works take pride of place in galleries such as the Courtauld Institute in London I'm gonna show you just how high the bar is set I mean if we're gonna prove the Patrick's picture is by data it's gonna need to have all the hallmarks of the master who did this [Music] just eternity this isn't it feeling artificial life extraordinary the shadow of the Rose on her dress is cast in a very dramatic way it's almost like a snapshot isn't it frozen in mid pose maybe what I love about every new like so many women I did a bit of tiny bit of ballet sort of clumping around the village hall when I was small and plumping plumping and and absolutely and is every little girl's kind of dream this impossibly frothy tulle lighter-than-air skirt he used the ballet like some artists use landscapes others used still lives to conquer all the great quests in art movement of course yes and do you think all painting can live up to that I mean it's it is a tall order isn't it however this is a much bigger picture probably you could say rather more ambitious and I think there's enough trace elements for us to take that prints picture seriously I really don't think this rules it out trouble is Patrick's picture is not in the catalog resume and this painting of course is yep and there it is 425 stamped numbered provenance they written up I mean we've got to find a way of getting Patrick's picture into this [Music] back in Phillips gallery it's time to assess the challenge ahead with the help of our head of research dr. bender Grosvenor a man with an acute eye for art and a keen instinct for evidence now I've been having a look at a high-resolution scan of Patrick's picture here and I think once you get your head round the composition is actually quite an intriguing prospect so we've obviously got a little ballet dancer on a stage and then I think to the right of her seems to me like so hirato background scenery and then on the left what looks like a seascape and those dark looming shapes in the foreground are in fact double-bass heads so this is an orchestra pit and what we're seeing is a performance those double bass heads rather awkwardly or interesting depending on your point of view I mean it would be good to know if daga painted that kind of thing in that way but he likes the challenged a guy he does all good okay so what do we know about the pictures history as provenance well very helpfully for me Patrick still has the original invoice from when his family bought picture in 1945 and at the bottom of the invoice it says provenance this picture was bought direct from the artist by goo Polanco they were a famous firm of art dealers the 19th century in 1882 and sold by them to Monsieur Emil Halbert founder and editor of the well-known art magazine constant consular burnin and now comes from his daughter so we've got a previous owner who was edge of an art magazine who bought it from a dealer who bought it from daga himself it's pretty compelling isn't it it is if we can make it all add up but unfortunately I think I've spotted a mistake already in this legend it says here that the picture was bought in 1882 from daga but we know that de Carr was only dealing with another dealer Paul durand-ruel until 1887 so the dates don't quite work so how worried should we be about that does that mean it's a fake I don't usually get too hung up on this this was remember 50 years after Degas sold it he was passed from father to daughter you know things get lost in that process the crucial thing is to find it physically written in the Google stock board Phillip you're always saying that you can tell as much about a pezzi from the back as the front so is there anything on the back of this painting they can help us I'm glad you remember that but I'm afraid in this instance it's a red herring there is something on the bag but it's a Christie's stencil and Patrick's family took it to Christie's in the 1970s when he was trying to get it authenticated there but it's not necessarily a bad thing that we haven't found exhibition labels and signs of it being out in the public this was a private bank that didn't get that light of day hmm well okay so putting the back of the painting and the provenance to one side then is there anything else we can do to establish whether or not this is a genuine dagger I mean this has have some serious accusations thrown against it we need now to try and rebuff those if there's any new evidence we can unearth at all then it might just mean that the people who are compiling the catalog resume will at last put it in [Music] [Applause] our search begins in Degas hometown Paris first stop the music Dulcy [Music] once a railway station it now houses one of the world's finest collections of impressionist art including some of Degas most important paintings and sculptures so this is the man Edgar Degas you today he's 21 when he painted this self-portrait he's looking back in those days he's looking back to the old masters who who really influenced him so how did this rather stiff self-conscious looking young man turn into the artists who created paintings with a vibrancy and a movement and who may have created Patrick's painting the son of a wealthy banker Edgar digger was born in Paris in 1834 and briefly trained as a lawyer before becoming an artist the seriousness of his early work gave way to something altogether more daring and expressive when he discovered the bohemian world of the stage as curator savvier ray explains exactly sorry nice to meet you nice to meet you and welcome at the Musee d'Orsay thank you this particular painting what key tell us about it this painting is one of the first valets seen by the gia and is a view that was very unusual for that time when you see the orchestra in the foreground and just the legs of the dancer of the background but you notice something similar to Patrick Station of course the composition with the double bass sticking up into them into the stage air but in the same way that the double bass is somehow linked you with the stage in Patrick's picture so - this seems to soar most like a ladder up into up into all the effervescent color well that's fascinating and it makes Patrick's picture seems slightly less out and landish there's a continuity of thought though isn't it between this painting in fact you can see exactly you can you could see how the idea evolved in 1874 a radical group of painters called the Impressionists staged their first exhibition in Paris alongside works by Monet and Renoir was a painting by dega that showcased everything he was passionate about in art so this painting shows what the ballet scenes will be all the jazz career so a study of movement of different poses of ballet dancers and also the study of the artificial light could Patrick's little blue dancer claim a rightful place on stage with the rest of Degas ballerinas we need to take our research a step further and find out more about how big are painted his favorite subject [Music] it was a real thrill to see the realism of the poses of the dancers and no scratching yawning tying of a ballet shoe fastening a ribbon and I don't know enough about ballet to to assess whether the dancers pose in Patrick's painting is is realistic in the way that a girl would have painted know that's something you need to check out further I mean we've seen a lot of evidence today but profit loss is an issue and it's something I'm going to need to tighten up at the time we think Patrick's picture was painted in the 1880s dager was frequently attending ballet performances here at the Palais Garnier a spectacular Opera House in the heart of Paris I'm following in dagur's footsteps to get an insight into the world that inspired him and to search for evidence that might help prove he painted our blue dancer [Music] I want to find out if the scene depicted in Patrick's picture there's any relation to a performance daga would have seen here archivist Matias or Claire has searched out visual records of two ballets that featured a grotto and seascape as part of the set Silvia and The Tempest we have photographs of set of the Silvia and you can see it's Greek style with a temple it's a bit of a stretch isn't it but I mean there is some water here and a sense of an art but that's probably it well the other one that's been suggest is possibly the tempest if you've got anything about the tempest yes we are from 1889 design lots of costumes gosh this wasp waist here is that some designers are idealized version of a woman [Music] laterz for getting there with an electric blue because it's yeah yeah and the under shape and the style of the of the skirt of the tulips the headdress maybe possibly yes after a glimpse of the costumes in the archives and those hanging now in the costume department it's easy to understand why dagger once said his chief interest lay in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes but I'm still hoping the ballet might provide us with more compelling evidence to support Patrick's picture and on the other side of town Phillip is on the hunt for more clues about the paintings history [Music] according to Patrick's invoice we should be able to trace his painting right back to the moment it left Degas studio it's a tantalizing prospect but all I've got to go on are two names goop Hill and Hobart to find out more I've come to visit the archives of the man who managed Degas business affairs renowned art dealer Paul durand-ruel he was well acquainted with all the players in the Paris art scene and his descendants Flavie and Paul Louie have been searching records for information about the names on our list the first stage in our provenance is that we have a record of the picture being sold by dega to gup-e oh now who is goopy goop we'll was mainly a seller and producer of little graphs and prints but then Theo van Gogh father of the painter of a song worked was repealed and was a very astute dealer and he brought quite a lot of business to peel this is good news for us dick I was notoriously picky about who he did business with but he trusted Theo van Gogh and sold him some paintings of dancers between 1887 and 1891 so there's a real chance that van Gogh brother would have bought our picture yes well there's a thought that the last owner of this picture was chuck wood emile Halbert who had a German connection can you tell us anything about him well well had quite a long active relationship with high boots he was a sort of unofficial agent in Germany he knew collectors there and acted as a middleman this is intriguing stuff able Halbert the previous owner of Patrick's picture wasn't just the editor of a German magazine he was also an art dealer and he seems to have been a keen buyer of Degas works here the GAO thought I have Bhutan 25th of October 1895 I know that's interesting because it shows that Herbert has a particular interest in as artists dagger with fee owner and I following up leads in Paris bend or jonathan turn their attention to the criticisms leveled of the painting effective the auction house Christie's had expressed interest in the picture in 2009 until a digger expert they consulted found fault with the dancers face and the artists signature but are they grounds for a second opinion so we've got here three absolutely authentic Degas images on different pictures book I don't know about you but to me they look as if they could all perhaps be by a different artist yeah that one's very sort of rapidly painted as yet and what I like about this one at the bottom is your expert said that the G was a little bit problematic but I find that quite simple tools yeah absolutely and then here we've also got the sort of hook of the day yeah and I think with your picture is quite interesting I was because it's quite small it's different from doing a signature on a big finished painting and it's a little bit like when you're trying to sign your oh so you're on the back of a credit card and they're tiny dolls tree you always get it wrong don't even try look like your normal signature but maybe maybe that's what was going on with a guy yeah if I was forging that picture I think I would go out there to make this thing that should look really good more like a Degas signature so the fact that it looks peculiar could actually be an argument in his favor and Jonathan what else did the connoisseur not like about your picture he had concerns over the face of the dancer faces the dancer he described it's sort of trivial features I mean I suppose you can see what he means in a way because it is a little bit awkward isn't it with that funny little sort of grimace and that funny a pair of eyes well it's a very subjective thing even though it is sort of very simply drawn I think it's also very sort of competently drawn well I've been having a little look amongst other Degas what I think's really interesting is that the faces of these little figures are actually you could call them trivialize to couldn't yeah I mean this one here looks like it was drawn by a five-year-old yeah it does and we've got some more examples here again I mean you could say that these are all the trivial faces you know so I think what we're dealing with here is it's quite difficult to actually make a firm opinion on a little face like that because in real life it's tiny isn't it I mean look it's there's not even half a centimeter big [Music] the dagger expert who examined Patrick's painting was also critical of the dancers pose as an artist dagger was meticulous about the way he betrayed his dancers depicting realistic ballet positions but can we prove that the dancer in Patrick's painting is balanced in an authentic ballet pose back in the palais garnier in paris i enlisted the help of the head of ballet a dancer and a photographer to try and recreate the scene we have here a picture which may or may not be by dagger but the important thing I want you to look at is the pose of this dancer Vivian is this pose wrong oh no no no see oh do same actor - Iselle septum--ah Mona said Koloff he shivered what ago she became like this - what we're wondering Allah knows if if if you could take that position we could catch a snapshot of it and then we could compare it with this yeah great so besson's you want to let's see if we can counter that [Music] daga was fascinated by the new technique of photography he got his first camera in 1895 and used it to take photos of himself and his artist friends but in an age when taking a photo was a slow and laborious process Degas still had the edge in his art capturing the turn of a heel or the twirl of a skirt in a way that the early photographers could only dream of now don't be fussy I think she's looking down oh yeah yeah yeah I think she's looking down like sit in this dusty Feist a system problem is that a problem would you not naturally do that at all oh it's okay Oh brilliant okay is it buzzy sorry but fix it so the positions not fixed your swing [Music] so it's a he is looking down facing forward [Music] that's exactly something that says his nose and that is it [Music] thanks very much I mean that's real progress though I could have painted that good I have to say that is better than I expected thank you thank you lil no that's that's just great after a fruitful trip to Paris we reconvene back at Phillips gallery bendure has been looking for hard evidence to back up the story on Patrick's invoice and he thinks he's found it I've been having a look at me Gooper like oh stop books and there is a reference to what could be our picture it's here in 1889 stop number one nine eight seventy three and the title the picture is dossers blue a contrabass which means blue dancer and double basses and it was bought from daga for six hundred francs then in the final Google stock book installment we find that the picture was sold to hire but on paper the provenance is all very convincing but we need to prove that the painting Patrick has now was the same picture that's in all these stock books from earlier on but I've been going through the catalogue raisonné here with which I've become very familiar and unfortunately here's a picture I think you might recognize because that's almost identical isn't it to Patrick's painting it hangs in an art gallery in Hamburg and it was given to them in the 1920s by a collector who bought it in the 1890s from our friend Emil halberd Hulbert I mean that's extraordinary because we're dealing with the same problem as well sounds like it the same composition so we have to ask ourselves is that going to be a problem this is our first serious obstacle if the entry in the Google stock book actually relates to the Hamburg painting is Patrick's picture just masquerading as a genuine dagger work then oh can we see both pictures side by side because surely I mean look at them we have to at least consider the possibility that Patrick's is a copy you know a fake concern they presume if it was fake that would be before 1945 because after that date it was in the possession of Patrick's family we know that yes although unfortunately to mention about here in 1945 slightly rings alarm bells in our world wouldn't you say I have to say that shilling date it can be the kiss of death to an otherwise decent provenance I mean if you can imagine you've got the end of the Nazi era the end of the Second World War chaos there are literally thousands of masterpieces they're guessing and it becomes a wonderful smokescreen for forges to try and pass off their face as those missing originals and in fact in Germany the police have just been prosecuting a master forger who was doing exactly that well maybe then we could talk to the German police about our painting and see how they spotted their face I've come to Berlin to follow up benders lead about a major investigation into fake artworks with stolen provenances I've secured a meeting in the grandly named state criminal police office Department of art with Marcos shown Felder one of the detectives he helped convict Europe's most prolific modern forger Wolfgang Bell Trekkie he was jailed for six years in 2011 for creating 14 fictitious works by renowned modern artists but police believe he faked many more we've got French we've got Dutch we've got German we've got modernism we've got cubism surrealism I mean he could turn his hand to anything couldn't yeah it seems so and when these paintings were thought to be genuine how much were they worth millions millions millions Wow the most valuable I think is the different for more than four million dollars and I mean he managed to trick art experts gallery owners museums yes for for a long time nothing for more than 20 years the genius of bel Trekkies crime laying the way he researched paintings that had gone missing during the Second World War he then created his own versions of them claiming the paintings had suddenly resurfaced from long-lost Jewish art collections he made fake labels for the collections soaking them in coffee so they would look old pearl truck his partner Helene even posed beside the fakes in period dress in a photograph that was dr. to look like it had been taken in the 1920s a trick that was only exposed when the police discovered they bought the bronze sculpture in 2003 and how many did he paint in the last interview I heard of it he painted works from 50 artists so you could count dozens and dozens and dozens hundreds third perhaps I don't know really that's his knowledge and his and he's keeping it and he's keeping it so presumably there are felt rocky fakes what on museum walls still in collections in a gallery whoops the art world failed for Bill Trekkies fakes because they had the provenance of the original missing work could someone have played the same trick on Patrick's father in 1945 looking at the possible dagger this the sale letter talks of it was sold in 1945 and it's written a history of who it belonged to but I mean that could be made up and we we just don't yes yes well Trekkie was finally caught when forensic tests on a suspicious picture revealed the presence of a pigment that didn't exist at the time it was supposed to have been painted my advice would be to go to a scientist to analyze the pigments a layer everything so expert connoisseurship on its own is not enough no not really the Bell tracking case shows how important science can be in exposing fakes to be sure that there are no suspicious pigments in Patrick's picture have come to University College London to meet Kathleen fryin an art historian with a high-tech gadget that wouldn't look out of place in a James Bond film an art gun that could identify the chemicals in oil paint and trace them right back to the artists palette we're looking for chemical elements and from the combination of elements that we find we can deduct which pigments were used I see so every pigment has its own as it were DNA that this gun can pick out on average will find about 10 to 15 elements oh this is good because we actually found mercury here which means that he used four million to paint this very bright red I see so mercury it's the sort of the bedfellow of vermilion as it was I know what does vermilion tell us well the impressionist and post-impressionist painters were particularly attracted to this pigment because it was such a brilliant scarlet so they loved using it it really caught their eye there is one pigment that we just don't want to find in Patrick's picture titanium white only in use a year after Degas death in 1917 its presence would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the painting is a fake so you're going for the bonnet of a of the dancer oh yes it's the most obvious area where is white present [Music] [Music] well this is very encouraging as you can see here the main elements found are lead which is good because it indicates that probably led white was used and not total as opposed to the dredger to Tony that's right yeah whew also a combination of copper and arsenic that we found here indicates that most likely he used emerald green which is fascinating because it was used a lot in the gals time but throughout the 20th century kind of phased out because it was poisonous and the Pigman was eventually banned in the 1960s all right well that helps us a bit the pigments and Patrick's painting seemed to be consistent with the impressionist period there's even evidence of certain colors specific to Degas palette [Music] but to be more confident that it isn't just a copy of the one in Germany I thought Patrick and his painting to hamburg's renowned art gallery for the first time in his life Patrick will be able to compare the two paintings side-by-side can his blue dancer hold its own next to a genuine work with remarkable similarities extraordinary moments for me yes fascinating because the double basses are placed almost exactly in the same position and it's extraordinary yes the most obvious answer distinctive difference is in the tone this is possibly a brightly lit scene you know and that's a bit more Twilight with music this is the Scottish yes it is a try like heavier look to it this is much more modern looking really yes when isn't it its psyche Brasher yes yes it's a chunkiness about it which is very pleasing it's lovely you're about to see for furthest [Music] comparing the pictures on the wall is one thing but the gallery have agreed to help us go one step further and take their painting out of its frame for closer inspection [Music] meanwhile I've arrived in Hamburg with a mission of my own this was the home town of the mysterious Emil Halpert and I want to know more about the man who figures prominently in the provenance of both paintings I've come to the gallery's archive to meet historian dr. Alex bastok he's written about halbert's life and career and shows me the only known photo of him he attended the Art College in Munich and we know that there must be paintings by hire but as well but we have no image images of these at all we know him best as an art critic he wrote for several art magazines like Winston Kunstler in fact a hybrid was the first art critic to write a favorable article about Claude Monet in Germany so he was a supporter of Impressionism was young Germany right now you say he was not critic but obviously I mean he owned Patrick's painting so he was what was he a collector you know he collected art to resell it he was occasionally working as an art dealer as well but most of all to teach the public what is modern art he held lessons at the bimah kunst Academy with his three Monet paintings he possessed so he saw it as his mission did he to convert people to impressive painters like Diego we were quite interesting letter here written in 1893 where he describes the path of painting of daga greater beauty and achieved with these simple means I cannot imagine that's what he write about daga halbert's passion for daga made him a convincing salesman he sold the painting that now hangs in the Hamburg gallery to a wealthy German collector who proudly displayed it alongside his old masters you can just make out the double faces there can't you in the foreground without a photograph of Patrick's painting hanging on a meal harlot's wall we can only assume that he kept it all his life and passed it on to his daughter as the original invoice suggests the fact that I would never sold the painting that Patrick certainly believes is by dega do you think that's unusual there might be several paintings he kept just to possess them and to be a an art collector as you expect someone to be so not necessarily because he couldn't sell them because he didn't want to sell them no just because he loved this one and wanted to possess it back at the gallery's library the moment of truth has arrived for Patrick and me as curator yen's houbolt unveils their day guard answer and we get the opportunity to make a direct comparison with Patrick's painting hello there how nice to meet you and thank you so much for taking this painting out of its frame for us I have to say this is a terrific moment isn't it I mean there is no better way than comparing art and then in the flesh like this I've said something strikes me now we're seeing the two the two patients is that we're naked without regular booths ani your picture is thicker of the paint has a little bit more depth the Hamburg painting seems altogether more spontaneous even the ground layer of white paint that the surface has been primed with is doing some work if this takes were this painting so interesting because this has to do with light and she uses with areas of the priming as the light source hmm and I get the impression that there's more more of a sense of of evolution in your painting as if he's trying to arrive at the composition yeah I think so it seemed to evolve more of a struggle really the other one maybe you came much more easily yes I mean in your picture it looks as though the solution has been arrived at yes and he's playing and he's playing with ideas a lighter touch altogether take I was an experimental artist who liked to try out different techniques and materials as an alternative to canvas he occasionally painted on wooden panels Patrick's picture is on mahogany but what about the Hamburg painting do you have to know what would yours is made from yes this is sir obviously it's mahogany it's mahogany yeah I mean there quite a few possible choices of words so the fact that they're both mahogany I find very encouraging and and although yours is covered with brown paper you can see that the edge has been similarly beveled which allows you to to fit it into a frame better apart of everything else but one immediate thing that I've just noticed is this stamp on the back you know I wasn't expecting to see that do you know anything about that not exactly we can read one single word this is Paris don't you think it's our two supplier I think that's quite possible yeah but it gives us a lead another lead yeah yes what we've seen today is is actually really encouraging and we've seen two paintings that shared very much the same characteristics I mean the same approach to the subject matter the same support was seen out of both of mahogany I've said I'm slightly more optimistic than I was but I still think we've got quite a way to go [Music] glad you go we both had cause for optimism after our visit to Hamburg but we still need to find out why the paintings suddenly appeared in a London art dealers at the end of the Second World War if Patrick's picture is genuine we have to believe it was in the hands of a male halbert's family until this point and the only people who can confirm that are halbert's descendants [Music] but we made a thrilling breakthrough we've tracked down higher books great-granddaughter Hillary she lives in America but she's flown over here to give us some answers Hillary thank you so much for coming oh it's a delight thank you can you trace back the family connection for me Emil Hale but to married an English woman and they had a daughter Katie my grandma and she had a son Claude my father and there he is when he was at Oxford and then it ends with you the purpose of our story yes he had me so is there any specific family memory about the sale of the picture we're looking into oh yes my father specifically recalls my grandmother having to sell this dagger ballet dancer painting in 1945 because she needed money fascinating Hilary's grandmother Katie married an Austrian Jew in 1933 they lived in Vienna until the rise of the Nazis forced them to flee with all their belongings she had the foresight to get to London because that was where her family was and where my grandmother would the collection went after it Emil died and left it to her so your grandmother in her the whole collection from hmm so what sort of names are we talking about there were too many lithographs large ones there was a monk painting we've still got this little de God answer that's what we've always known it is this is a reproduction of it it's a very sweet looking little scary it's charming so in terms of the prognoses painting then we don't press you is not we I mean if we're tracing it from from dagger to goopy Oh Degas dealer to your great-grandfather down through the family to your grandmother to your father who remembers this painting being sold we then pick up the trail at nurdle as the dealers where we have the document saying it was sold to the rice family I mean that is an unbroken line of provenance yes I'm getting that early and it's the sort of evidence that would Venusaur jewelry but will it convince the catalogue raisonné writer Hilary's story is compelling but Bendel might just have found the hard evidence we need to back it up a separate entry in the Google stock books that proves emile Halbert did buy - virtually identical dagger dances I found a little nugget of Provence which i think is going to help our cause it turns out with the picture in Hamburg which we know belong to Heil but has its own provenance going all the way back to daga in 1889 so there's no question of the provenance of Patrick's picture being muddled up with the picture in Hamburg in fact the Hamburg picture ironically could actually help us prove Patrick's because it could easily be some sort of variant some sort of first idea for the Hamburg painting I mean we saw versions of things all the time I mean Henry the eighth's and Nelson's coming out of our ears Patrick's painting could be a study for the other one I mean artists did this we know that daga did this and add it to it they're both on almost identical panels you know well I've done some research into the label which you found on the back of the panel of the picture in Hamburg and it comes from a firm of artists suppliers called ray and pebble and their headquarters would just around the corner from Degas studio now annoyingly we haven't got that stamp on the back of Patrick's picture but I have had Patrick's picture x-rayed and it shows at the very least that it was prepared with a base layer or a ground layer of lead white paint which is just how people like Ray and Perot used to prepare the panels they're sold to artists in Paris okay so both paintings are on the same professionally prepared 19th century artists supplier panel which is circumstantial at best really but then if we add in the pigment analysis that you did and the provenance does this mean we are now ready to submit Patrick's painting to the people who write the catalogue resonate in nearly but not quite there's a woman I would love to show this to Anthea Callum she's seen as a an Oracle on this whole subject of Impressionism if we can get her blessing for this picture I feel so much more comfortable taking it out to France getting an audience with dr. Anthea Callen hasn't been easy she divides her time between Britain France and Australia and her expertise as an Authenticator is always in demand she has reviewed the results of our forensic tests on the pigments and the panel but will she buy into our theories about the signature and the face of the dancer she agreed to meet us at the Courtauld Institute in London to offer her opinion what do you make it's an interesting problem it's an interesting problem there are all sorts of things that are good about it but I think there are definitely some serious queries as well so you've seen the tests we've had done the chemical analysis of the pigments and they all seem to suggest that the late 19th century was certainly used at that date now how do you respond to that I think the pigments are very characteristic both of the period and of and of Digger what you find a good deal of in the results is the earth colors like red iron oxide or yellow ochre for example which aren't characteristic of most of the impressionist painters palettes but nevertheless were regularly used by de gas so that's all good what about the signature how does that look to you because that has been raised as an issue in the past yes the the signature goes very woolly after the D the D I can accept but between the D and the s it goes rather sort of blurred and wooly and then a signature typically changing though I mean absolutely yes it's possible but it's mmm give me something which you think is really against because your expression suggests that you stand both sides of the line well I would be concerned both about the in a sense the draftsmanship the construction of it for example in the heads of the double basses for me the drawing is not quite right he hasn't fully articulated the forms of those base heads which he does in other work so he he clearly knows the instruments really well one of the least convincing elements is actually the face it's almost too cute too pretty I have to say I love what I'm hearing in a way because this is connoisseurship and accidently connoisseurship is an opinion of course and there will be separately of course but as people are more infinite with empathy of sharing some of the same concerns as the daga expert who examined Patrick's painting in 2009 the idea that someone else had a hand in the work still can't be ruled out have you ever seen other day guys in inverted commas that looked like this no I haven't actually I haven't Simon if you disobey it's a very good one whoever has done this knows what they're doing so either day go or or a master of crime exactly this is I think on a knife edge with one of the world's leading impressionist experts finding it too close to call our Patrick and Jonathan still happy for us to submit the painting to the daga catalogue raisonné in Paris for final judgment given that we have this slightly double-edged response from Anthea are you prepared now for us to get forward oh definitely yes and I think on balance it's good news and we have to just accept what happens at the next stage the case we've built up makes it a far easier judgement to say that it is by dega than it's not the blue dancer is making the most important journey of her life all we can do is wait the fate of the painting now lies in the hands of gallery Brahma and Laurel so the Parisian firm who controlled the catalogue resume they have the sole right to rule on the authenticity of Degas work and in the art world new and previously unknown impressionist paintings are a rare discovery but after more than a month of intense scrutiny the blue dancer is back in England and a letter has arrived from Paris de Pena was in this letter Patrick's painting is either worth a few hundred pounds or a few hundred thousand pounds are you ready Musa for nap Lizzy we have the pleasure to confirm to you the painting described below which you have submitted for our appreciation and have you noticed it's already begun to painting Patrick and Jonathan are gonna be here any minute and I can't wait to tell them after more than 60 years of uncertainty Patrick and Jonathan are about to get the proof they've dreamed of resulting here well I think we reverse you're absolutely on the edge because we know I took you the whole business ooh well brace yourselves we have the pleasure to inform you that the painting described below that you have submitted for appreciation is an authentic work with this letter the line at the bottom here says this painting will be reproduced in the second supplement of the catalogue resume yes of the work of dagger now that is the seal of approval that you need if you're gonna sell this painting that's what you need you've got it what would that be roadman well I can see now for a pocket-sized dagger there would be a lot of collectors and there who would love this valet image by the great name I could see it being worth half a million if not more cuff millions if not more yes obviously with my children the best thing would be that it was sold and they would help with their mortgages and everything else do you feel a dad to do that I think this calls us of champagne I did it back Cheers if the christening the new day goes [Music] I'm so thrilled for them and you know to think you know that one letter has made all the difference you know so often in this world that I occupy I've seen people's dreams crushed equally on occasions I've seen lives transformed and you know I'm already looking forward to the next painting matanza [Music] and to read a blog posted by fake off for toons Philip mold go online to the website next on BBC one the ancient forests and industrial heritage that inspired a very famous coal miners son in Countryfile [Music] you

Channel: mightwenotbehappy

Views: 343,772

Rating: 4.8143973 out of 5

Keywords: EDGAR DEGAS, ART, FAKE, OR, FORTUNE

Id: M6astDk_qv8

Length: 58min 58sec (3538 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 24 2018