Italian Mystery: Venice View Creates Double Artist Conundrum | Fake Or Fortune | Perspetive

foreign [Music] the art world where paintings change hands for fortunes so thank you very much but for every known Masterpiece there may be another still waiting to be discovered this is it International art dealer Philip mold and I have teamed up to hunt for lost works by great artists we use old-fashioned detective work and state-of-the-art science to get to the truth science can enable us to see beyond the human eye oh my goodness every case is packed with surprise and Intrigue is it or isn't it a Freud then but not every painting is quite what it seems gosh why didn't I notice that before it's a journey that can end in joy that is enough to support the conclusion that it is by Tom Robert or bitter disappointment I don't think it's a work by Gogan I'm very sorry this time we investigate a highly desirable Venetian View but there are two possible artists in the frame could this be a work by one of the world's most renowned view painters Francesca guardi or the Lesser note michaeli marieski in a journey which takes us to some of the most glorious cities in the world it is gorgeous we'll decipher the clues hidden within the painting itself brilliant discovery and use cutting-edge technology to uncover its secrets you haven't left the painting anywhere to hide but in a murky world where copies and imitations are Rife it makes me feel rather uncomfortable can we do enough for this painting to Wing through [Music] [Music] we're in central London in pursuit of another disputed picture a landscape by an unknown artist [Music] lots of people taking pictures and quite right too I've always thought the view from this bridge is the best one in London no one can resist a good view on holiday can they but the picture that we're about to see could be described as the ultimate tourist souvenir the painting has been in the same family for Generations and now its owner magazine publisher Nick Hopkinson who come in has asked us to investigate so here is the mystery painting [Music] gorgeous view of Venice and I recognize that church the Santa Maria Del solite yes it's just lovely so how do you come to have this picture Nick it was it was bought by my great-grandparents in Venice in around about 1880 when they were on a holiday there it was then passed down to my mother and on her death in 2006 I inherited it that's a warmingly long family provenance isn't it yes and I hope it might continue so how can we help well I would really like you to be able to tell me who painted this picture over time it's been considered to have been painted by a number of different people early on as a guardi then and there's still debate Francesco guardi and mikhaili marieski are both known for their paintings of Venetian views in the 18th century they were both contemporaries of the most famous view painter of them all Giovanni Antonio canaletto but confusion Reigns partly because these artists only signed their work very occasionally is there anything that will give us a start on this yes indeed shall we turn it around yeah could we have a look there are two labels on the back fixed to the painting in early 1900s when it was lent to the Royal Academy by my great-grandfather and the odd thing is that this label ascribes it to marieski and the one on the right talks about it being as a guardi so the Royal Academy has two exhibitions of this picture one as a guardi the other is a marieski that's what it seems yeah just to add to the model the marieski on the label is jacobo not Michaela should we turn it back yep at the time the two artists were often confused now we know that jacobo never painted any views of Venice at all if it's going to be any Mary Esky it's gonna have to be Michaela [Music] do you like the picture Nick I love the picture and I've liked it ever since I was a small child I like the activity of the people this chat I found I remember as being terrified of him as a five-year-old he looks very Sinister very Cloak and Dagger yeah so we've got a painting here then that could be by guardi it could be by marieski how does that affect the value for it well there's a big difference marieski is a very significant artist in his own right but not anything like the stature of an artist like Francesco guardi if it is a work by marieski well comparable paintings on this scale have made half a million pounds so quite a lot of money but if a name of the Statue of guadi could be put to this it could be worth I don't know up to 10 million pounds gosh gosh indeed I mean I have to say Nick if if it does turn out to be a party that will be by a country mile the most valuable painting we have ever looked at on fake or Fortune yeah and what will you do if it does turn out to be like what well there are other family members who've got an interest for my brother and sister and I think I might come under a bit of pressure from them to sell it but uh on the other hand as my own choice I'd just love to keep it for yet another generation yes indeed the fifth Nick has been searching his family papers for information on the painting and its original owners mayor Spielman and his wife Gertrude what have you got here well here we've got a book about my great-grandmother and here is Gertrude Spielman there's a photograph of her from about 1900. look at that what a great picture and here is a photograph of Samaya Spielman my great-grandfather probably a bit later on I would think and maybe in the 1920s so these are the people that bought the painting yes so they went on a trip to Venice in you know around about 1880 1882 something of that order in the 1950s my parents were trying to discover who it might have been by and this this is a letter from the National Gallery in early 50s dear David Hopkinson your father we have a photograph in our files of a very similar picture to Yours by Michaela marieski this version is almost identical except that there are few well-dressed figures on the jet in the foreground than in your picture but the architect is very much alike I mean the good thing is they haven't ruled it out they haven't said of course it's not madies don't be ridiculous um but they've not confirmed it either it doesn't get us much further what else have you got this is a letter from Agnes the dealers probably replying to an inquiry of my mothers saying that they had the painting throughout the duration of the second World War for safe keeping the picture was listed under the name oh of guadi at the time I mean what you've got is your great grandmother giving it to the dealer Agnes for safe keeping during the second world war and she has told them by the sounds of it it's by gwadi whether you're agreed or not I can't tell and you've got the National Gallery saying they have a photograph of a painting that's similar to yours and the photograph they've got is ever painted by marieski I mean they're not saying it's definitely not madieski I suppose but they're not equally they're not saying it is by marieski so I don't know really much further on are we not a lot differences of opinion clearly while Fiona delves into the family's story it's a chance for me to get closer to the painting itself this picture is so seductive the colors are So Glorious that blue sky that intense blue and then further down semi-reflecting the architecture turquoise canal I mean this is the stuff of fantasy on one level but of course it's a real place of Dreams it's Venice it's that place people love but what I'm trying to do is look beyond the appeal dictates that might tell us who this artist could be I mean there are things that unquestionably catch your attention look at the water for example there's little squiggles and commas and the red ground shining through from beneath and one thing I I find enrapturing are those two open shutters hanging on their rusting hinges I mean this is an artist who's really observed what's going on around him in Venice not just the Grandeur and the formality but also the scruffy informal moments and are any of these characteristics ones that you would find in marieski or gawadi the two artists the Two Front Runners at this stage [Music] to gain a deeper understanding of the two painters associated with next picture Francesco guardi and mikhaili marieski I've come to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge it's one of the few public collections in Britain to house recognized works by both artists this is a painting of The Fortress of San Andreas in Venice by Francesca guardi in about 1770 and although the focus of the painting is the Fortress it's almost as if it's been swept up in the artist's brush in guardi's Brush it's about atmosphere it's about color and reflection to capture that feeling that is triggered by Venice rather than necessarily Venice itself we know that gwadi did like architecture and he could do architectural scenes but I can't help feeling thinking about next picture that we're dealing with a slightly different type of artist and that other painter that's in the frame that we've got to look at is Michaela marieski and here is a really good example of what he can do this is a another view of Venice on the Grand Canal this time and it might seem absurd to focus in on this but the thing that really strikes me about it is the profile of all of those chimneys the way that they're silhouetted in that extremely crisp way so unlike guardi with that wonderful blue sky behind now we know that marieski was a theatrical scene painter and you get this interest in geometry and expressing a a background view in front of which of course players could could do their thing in a in some sort of performance and I get that feeling with the next picture it's almost as if the foreground is a stage and the architecture sort of sets the scene behind [Music] remember the figures in Nick's picture the ladies are orientated slightly differently the man's coat has changed but here you have almost exactly the same grouping another Quirk that I notice in this picture and it was one of the first things I spotted with Nick's painting is the almost sculptural sort of literal way in which the stonework is done I mean this is a man who's pushed his nose up against the real thing wouldn't surprise me if he could plaster and bricklay himself having made this comparison reflected on this painting I think guardi is slipping out of prominence as a possibility on balance I think we can see much stronger links between Nick's picture and marieski [Music] we need to understand more about the world of the view painters [Music] and we've come to the place that inspired them Venice we're traveling to The Basilica of Santa Maria de la salute designed by vincenzos camachi in the 17th century with its iconic Dome it was one of the great emblems of the city and there is our church ah look at that so familiar from the picture but seeing it in real life for the first time it's magnificent it's gorgeous cite every bit as popular with today's tourists as it was with visitors in the 18th century but we're in search of the exact view of the salute as it appears in Nick's painting quite a stirring thought that we must be standing pretty close to where the artist must have been I think the exact spot close enough here in the painting it seems to recede a little bit and and here it just stands out and it's you feel so close to it from this position so and it's so dramatic but what's so wonderful about this is that just standing here it's like we stepped back through the centuries because this scene in terms of the buildings hasn't changed that much I mean restoration work has gone on but you can see everything that was here and this time is still here I mean what they are done is slightly compressed the scene or almost added a bit of dramatic license compared to the real View put those gorgeous costumes in there and we need fionas for you to dress up like that I need to put on a and we put on a hat like that and a mask yeah you know you want to get the old Glad Rags out for it that's so yeah I mean I can see why in the 18th century if this is when your picture was painted what a perfect thing to bring home I mean every time you looked at it your mind would go back to to here to Venice wouldn't it [Music] Century then Venice was a regular destination for tourists particularly young English gentlemen traveling Europe on their grand tour Venetian artists started to cater to their tastes reducing the picture postcards of their day the man who cornered the market was caneletta he added the magic ingredient we're lacking today sunshine but in the 1730s a serious competitor appeared michaeli marieski marieski was born in 1710 the son of a poor woodcarver although he only painted views for about seven years he produced hundreds working quickly with the help of other artists he could charge less for his paintings and thereby undercut caneleto's prices mariusky died at the age of 31 but the production line didn't stop as followers produced copy after copy confusion began to rain I've brought Nick to The Archives of the Venice Academy of Arts we're meeting Jeremy bodrow an expert on Italian painting he's found a document that gives a remarkable insight into the Venetian Art Market Jeremy nice to meet you you've pulled this document out of the archive here for us what does this tell us this is a record from The Academy of Venice dated to the 6th of December 1789 in which a council has been called to examine two paintings brought to the academy by a gentleman named Giuseppe odello to ask whether they might be attributable to caneletto that seems a bit early to be wondering about what who painted them it's extraordinary is horrifying isn't it yeah by this point there is a confusion because of the similarity of these views and the number of artists working on them in previous decades and then who are these people that that make the decision here we have the president of the academy and some senior professors one name jumps off of the page and that's Francesco guardi another important view painter no we know that name yeah so they're basically telling us here that they have a unanimously confirmed that these paintings are not by Antonio caneletto but instead from the school of Michaela marieski and they're fortunate to have Francesco guardi on the panel because even though he's quite old at this point he's only two years younger than marieske so he would have known him in his Youth and be able to provide authority to the attribution of the school of marieski I mean this is sort of the fake or Fortune of its time isn't it because we're doing exactly the same thing we are looking at these names at guardi at marieski I mean the coincidences are just extraordinary aren't they and the owners were trying to prove it was a camera yes so instead of Giuseppe o'della they should have had Nick in there sadly we haven't Gotti to come along so well actually it wasn't me yeah it's no wonder the venetians were confused these pictures were never intent intent for an Italian I didn't regard them as serious art as quickly as the views were painted they were shipped off to buyers abroad [Music] the source of our own confusion lies in London how did Nick's picture come to be exhibited as both a marieski and aguadi by the Royal Academy Nick and I are paying them a visit [Music] Mark Pomeroy who's been studying the Academy's records for us with a bit of a conundrum on the back of Nick's painting we've got two labels which appear to be associated with an exhibition the Royal Academy one suggests the artist is marieski and the other suggests the artist is guadi so we don't really know what to make of that well I can see immediately that you've got two different types of documents only one of which is actually a label and in fact we've got a surviving original here from the very first exhibition in 1870 so it's got the same frame around it there look do you want to read that out and then it says name of artist and then title of work and finally it says this label is to be affixed to the back of the frame not the canvas of the picture I like that having to remind people not to stick labels to canvases and I presume then the academy would would fill in the details of that well I assumed that also and when checking the letter books that we have it became pretty clear early on that it was the owners themselves that were filling in these labels and making these attributions before the paintings were sent to the Royal Academy mmm fascinating yep so that would then be your great grandfather who filled it in himself you think it was their responsibility yes and then the academy accepted it or didn't accept it yes so what about this other thing here this other looks like a label but you say it isn't no that's actually been cut from an exhibition catalog itself it handwritten um no that's just been annotated and someone subsequently has written Royal Academy on the top so we do we do have a copy of the catalog of the 1908 exhibition do you want to compare these two then so this one says a scene in Venice view looking across the Grand Canal to the Church of the salute so that means they had no doubt then yeah well yes I think the fact that it was exhibited and exhibited as a marieski is pretty good proof the academy was sure in its opinion why do you think your great grandfather would have put that well I really don't think he was the sort of person that would make it up so he must have generally thought it was yeah and he his brother was a very famous art historian so Isadora Spielman who must have he must have consulted and and of course the other brother Marion who's a special interest to me as we have part of his archive here at the Royal Academy he also he was a big collector wasn't he yes he was and the art editor pivotal figure in the late 19th century British art World actually Nick's great-grandfather mayor Spielman came from an influential banking family they were philanthropists who supported all sorts of causes from education to orphanages to the Arts mayor Spielman clearly believed he'd bought a guardi but as we've seen so many times on fake or Fortune wanting it to be true doesn't make it so guadi is moving further out of the picture but with no signature is there anything more to link it to marieski time for Philip and me to take stock so I've been thinking about Nick's picture there is frankly no doubt at all that it's very closely related to the work of michelia mariuszky and of course we know it's not Yakov madieski because we now know he didn't paint views at all which Michaela manasqui absolutely specialized in that yeah and also this view of salute is unquestionably one that you know really got to him he did at least seven versions but have a look at this painting which is right at the end of Mary esky's career 1740-41 at the Art Institute of Chicago it's enormously close to our artist I need so similar isn't it it's the same angle and look at the figures they're almost identical yeah but you've got to keep in mind that if this is by Marriott he didn't do the figures he farmed that bit out he would do the architecture in the scene and then another painter would do what they were good at which was sort of costume and what have you but but the point remains is that is the design and template of Nick's picture and the name of the artist attached to it is very esque so we've lost now the attribution of guadi and the value of tens of millions of pounds that go with that on the plus side if next picture is by Mary eske we're still looking at hundreds of thousands of pounds yeah but it's not as binary as that though because they're all those followers out there I mean it's quite possible that this is done by someone in the manner of Mary eske so perhaps needless to say it would be thumpingly useful to get some problems on this okay I'll get on it [Music] I've been looking for information on Nick's family and I've come across something intriguing I found out that mayor spielman's brother Marion worked for a number of art magazines including one called The Connoisseur and I've got a copy of it here from 1907. and in it there's an article called in the sales room and it talks about a sale now this is interesting on Saturday February the 2nd a sale at Christie's which includes a painting by Jay maresky a view on the Grand Canal Venice facing the Santa Maria de la salute with gondolas and figures sound familiar and the dimensions 23 inches by 38 inches and it's sold for 150 guineas and today's money that's 16 000 pounds so that's a pretty hefty sum now I'm wondering if this is Nick's picture because the description is spot on as are the dimensions the only thing is if this is right about a painting in 1907 that must mean that Nick's story of his great-grandparents buying the picture in Venice in the 1880s must be wrong I need to get the bottom of this and at Christie's Nick and I have arranged to meet archivist Linda McLeod some of the research I've been doing suggests that a painting very similar to yours and it was sold at Christie's on the 2nd of February 1907. I just wonder if you can tell us anything about that yes so this is the sale that took place on the 2nd of February 1907. draw your attention to lot 26. so what have we got here a view on the Grand Canal Venice facing the Santa Maria Del salute with gondolas and figures bye marieski what's that board by Spielman by your great grandfather what's that about so that means that this painting was sold here at Christie's it was but he actually bought it for 157 pounds 10 Shillings and absolutely flabbergasted by that thing and and a real shock and something that I had never ever heard of because the family history was that it had been bought by them on their visit to Italy in around 1880. so this is a total surprise to me instead yeah it's almost 30 years later in London yes and a year later he described it as a guardi when he lent it to the Royal Academy as a winter exhibition so what was that all about I don't know but it makes me feel rather uncomfortable what do you mean well if he knew genuinely knew that it was a maresky why put it up a year later as Wadi that makes me feel a bit strange I mean don't forget that Philip makes a living out of buying paintings that have been attributed to an artist and then he proves it by someone actually rather more important more valuable so who knows yeah what do we know about who your great-grandfather bought this picture from we can see from earlier on in the sale catalog we have the owner's name and here we have the gentleman's name it's gubbins major companions were a great name and that number there 374 BD is the Christie stock number the inventory number which hopefully should be on the back of the painting I've brought along an image of the back let me just make it bigger any picture passing through Christie's will have had the stock number applied to the back with a stencil ah look it's coming after the Woodworkers sevens four right and there is b d capital b d so what do you think of that well that's it that's completely unknown to me until I saw that so there's no doubt that you're painting is that painting no doubt at all no it can't be disputed in any way I've got the day book here from 1906 stroke 1907 so that's the list every day of the paintings that get given to Christie's to be put up for sale indeed here we can see major gubbins deceased so this is the sale from his estate from his estate and the collection consisted of 47 pictures and drawings so now we have a new name in the history of your picture major Guardians do you know anything about him I don't I'm afraid at the moment I think we need to find out don't you yes that's the next step I guess who was Major gubbins and where did he get the picture from [Music] what in London not Venice then there's a possibility it might never have come from Italy at all so what's this all about the envelope so I've been looking into the history of Phoenician views and it's fair to say that I have entered murky Waters in fact a grand canal of Merck we know that copies were made for those eager tourists in 18th century Venice but even with the death of the artist the market was still very much Alive by the 19th century No stately home was complete without its collection of views known as caneleti even if they weren't by caneleto and with demand so high English artists began to paint their own versions I've got here A bunch of images some original 18th century paintings of Venice by Masters some 19th century copies and it is your job to tell me the difference oh right so here we have two possible works by caneletto and yet another two which is 18th century which is a 19th century copy and then our friend marieski a genuine one and then a derivative a hundred years later right okay um well this is a very well known painting so this is the original caneletto 19th century [Music] and this one I'm not so sure okay so one of them is a is an unclean picture because we don't want to make it too easy yeah [Music] 18th century 19th century and then here I would say marieski 19th century copy hmm okay you're good but you had to think did I get them all right yeah you did you did I I hate to admit it but you did but you can see the problem there can't you I mean they're so close and you've got the benefit of having them next to each other exactly that's what makes a difference isn't it and in the early 19th century it was such a problem that well in fact on one occasion uh they exposed a sort of a factory of canalettes in Richmond Bridge I mean the issue was that serious you're kidding so we need to think about this then very carefully in terms of Nick's picture don't we we do and it means therefore also we have to fall back upon other things not just our eye it's going to be looking at provenos and science it's time to go to The courthold Institute to see if Professor Aviva bernstock can help Aviva is using an x-ray gun to reveal what elements are present in the paint evidence of the pigments actually used by the artist will the colors be those that were available to Michaela marieski in the 18th century don't want Aviva to detect a 19th century pigments in particular cobalt blue that was in use from 1807. [Music] so this is this is a a gun of Truth yes we can see which elements are present tonight to set up the analysis so in the greeny blue of the water and if there was any Cobalt there would be a big peak there and another small Peak there but there isn't okay that's relief that's progress so what about the blue in that gorgeous jacket I think this is the jacket you can see that there's no Cobalt present at all there are no Peaks here for kobold I would guess that this is Prussian Blue which is what we want to hear it was certainly available in the 18th century I see so there's there's two points on the graph are good news yeah so perhaps I should look at the sky as well if you would okay very similar um no cobalt blue similar Spectra to the last one for the jacket and also for the water using all the techniques at her disposal mercifully Aviva has not found 19th century pigments in Nick's picture but her analysis has thrown up a crucial new piece of evidence there was something quite interesting in that in every area that I analyzed every spot on the painting there was a lot of mercury and sulfur together that's the Mercury Peak there which really indicates the presence of a Vermilion which is present in the ground underneath the paint film Vermilion as in red yes yeah and indeed Vermilion is quite a poor dry in oil media so if it's mixed with the ground underneath the paint film and if the ground wasn't completely dry then the paint That's put on top of that might crack more readily and that's why you can see it through the cracks so we have found another characteristic to add to the profile of this artist a lover red with Mercury yeah that's true unusual foreign Ed up by what Aviva has been able to establish with her scientific means because she's got to the point where we know that all the pigments in this picture were around and used in the 18th century now it doesn't completely rule out a later Faker but it's very reassuring it makes it quite unlikely the only problem is that red vermilion we need to crack that one that is all looking very good on the provenance front not quite so brilliant I've been looking into the rather splendidly named Major gobbins who owned the picture before Nick's great grandfather and he was a very interesting character he spent his time between India and London he was a major in the third Hyderabad Cavalry would you believe but when it comes to the paintings he owned 47 of them when he died what I have not been able to find out at all is whether he inherited them where they bought them to say where he bought them from let me just know what a task ahead because marieske dies in 1743 Nick's great grandfather bought it in 1907 and there's that huge gaping hole in between at least I know I know so I've been looking at the labels on the back see if that might help us so we've got the Royal Academy labels which we know about this chalk Mark here which would suggest that the painting was at Sotheby's at some point but there is one other thing I've got to show you which is this little red seal here if you look at it in close up the word fiorency yes that means Florence in Italian that is a seal from Florence that's probably brilliant I know we need to find out more I'm already on it thank you the mysterious seal places the picture in Italy at some point in its history clear the answer lies in Florence itself [Music] and Nick's come with me to investigate I could tell Nick that when we were last together and found out how your great grandfather mayor actually bought the painting compared to the story that had come down through the family that left you feeling but it didn't sit comfortably with you it was such a total surprise to have this family story uh which had been handed down and blown out of the water by what we found out so as far as the history of your painting is concerned the provenance of it we can take it at the moment as far as back as 1906. what we can't do is take it back to the 18th century when if marieski painted it that's when it would have been done so that is a big gap a slightly worrying Gap please don't mind me saying one thing that might help us is there's I don't know if you spotted it there's a little seal on the back of your picture I don't know if you've noticed I noticed that and wondered what it was well you're about to find out I hope because that is a seal from Florence which is why we're here I see and we're going to go down into the city and try and find out more about it [Music] we're heading to the Florence estate archives where art historian Jeremy bodrow has been digging through documents for us looking for the source of the wax seal well I'm desperate to know what you've managed to find out about this seal on the back of Nick's picture so here it is all I can see there is fiorense so that's Florence anything else that says or the Supreme magistracy of Florence the magistrato Supremo was the highest court in Florence founded in 1532 one of its major roles was selling off the property of bankrupt families and this is where Nick's painting might have come into contact with the court gosh that's extraordinary isn't it all these years you've looked at this Nick yes and just wondered what how it was you know was it a dealer seal or something like that but that's fascinating so what are all these documents here these are the public announcements that were produced by the magistrata Supremo from the 1780s and 1790s this is a posting announcing an auction of property belonging to the nuns of Mercy yes and you can see here that some of the tax Still Remains from how they posted this either outside of city hall or the location of the auction or perhaps the property itself presuming there are a lot of these documents there are and I was able to look at a few of them I was hopeful that there might be some inventory of paintings but I have not found anything like that yet and how long do you think it would take you to find it several years we've got uh kilometers of material here in Florence that relate to this specific magistracy so it would take a long time time but is there anything you can tell us that might help us well this uh particular court has existed since the 16th century up until 1808. 1808 and that is when this particular branch of the government is suppressed and no longer exists yeah you've got a period there you know start and end you can narrow down to a few decades uh in which it would be likely that this painting passed through Florence so in terms of being a much later fake well unless someone's fake this seal but that's very unlikely it must have been painted before 1808 because 1808 is the latest date by which it could have been sold wow so what do you make of that well it just excites me again we should hope that is a brilliant discovery well that was a real turning point I could see Nick was thrilled as he should be this we've now jumped back in time to at the very latest 1808 and if this picture is by marieski that's about give or take 60 years or so from the moment madieski picked up his brush and put it to canvas and also we've now placed the picture in Italy in Florence and we'd not been able to do that before so whatever way you look at it this is a real breakthrough [Music] back in London we need to look deeper into the techniques in next painting and we've been given access to a revolutionary new piece of imaging technology thanks to its inventor Louis babulus the process involves taking 20 000 photographs from multiple angles giving us an astonishing insight into the paintings surface understanding the way the paint has been applied could be crucial if we're to separate a genuine Mario ski from a copy we've gathered at the gallery to see the results of the scan it seems to me that we're in a pretty useful Place we've established that this picture has to be painted prior to 1808 the pigment analysis pretty well packed set up now what have you subjected his painting to so we created these unique images that you can interact with you can change the Viewpoint you can change light Direction it really takes understanding of pictures to the next level and of course could be very useful when when dealing with the architecture this one yeah we've taken detailed images of the Mary esque from the Fitzwilliam Museum to allow us to compare the technique what about the the building work yeah the treatment of the the walls well in next picture you can see that the architecture has been has been blocked in and then the the paint has been smeared over it's a bit like a like a plaster it might do in real life and I think you could see something not dissimilar actually with a known Mary Esky well here you can you can actually see the marks of the brush it looks like a flared brush that's pushed the paint up the wall yeah it's not quite like that one on next but it's got the sort of in pasta hasn't it the thick areas of paint but it's an important and defining characteristic of next picture and I think it's quite useful in fact it's rather uplifting to see it in the new Mario ski what about the figures let's look at those so in the Cambridge picture the faces are you know very well they're just not really there are they're just so it's a rough idea of faces and what is really interesting is the same sort of quirky approach the way that the figures are made up of fragments that from a distance rather magically come together yes you can see it there yeah what if we were to compare Nick's picture with the the marieske of the same view that's hanging in the Ocean City of Chicago though it it does seem almost like one of the same picture but what I am noticing are differences in the composition if you look in the top left there is this pinky sandstone looking Tower now that's not in the picture that we know to be by Marriott in America marked difference on the right Church of San Gregorio with its curved front seems strangely misshapen in Nick's picture the thing that strikes me overall though is that there's a precision and Clarity in the known mariesque in Chicago compared to Nyx I mean for example look at the cupola in in the numerous you can see every town on the roof whereas this is a very sort of impressionistic a view of it I know Luke's almost giving us too much information I mean what I am now coming to feel particularly with the benefit of what lyric has just been able to show us is that there are details in Nick's picture ways of doing things in particular passages that I don't find exactly in other known works by Marriott [Music] there's one last aspect of Nick's picture to investigate the distinctive Vermillion red ground layer at the courthold Aviva has taken a microscopic flake from the edge of the painting to reveal how the layers have been built up the next step is to compare the results with a recognized work by marieski so I've brought Nick to the Hamilton car Institute in Cambridge who've conserved many important Phoenician views supervised by its director Rupert featherston [Music] so early on in this investigation I went to see a really fine work by micheli mariaski at the Fitzwilliam Museum and I gather Rupert that over two decades ago you had a long hard scientific look at it we did and 1994 one of our students postgraduate students produced this volume which tells you an awful lot about the Fitzwilliam painting it's a very thorough piece of Investigation well this could be I think really valuable for us if we compare it to the analysis that Aviva has given us absolutely and so what we'll look at first taken from this is an image of the Fitzwilliam Museum's structure the ground structure underlying the paint it looks more like a sort of brown but it looks a ready Brown in real life it's it's quite strongly red it's like a trifle well it does is it it does indeed and then on top what looks like the icing this very thin maybe a double layer of slightly off-white so white with a red under layer exactly sort of shining through yes so this is very typical of the sort of mid-century Venetian Technique we think this is something that Mary Esky went in for definitely definitely so the question is what have we got in Nick's boot this is a very different sort of cross-section so we've got a thin layer of red but above two layers quite thick layers of a white the red is on top of the white it's the other way around now that's a very unusual feature it's not something I've seen before yes and what also transpired that it contains Vermilion pigment in there it's an expensive pigment and it's not normally used in your under layers you tend to keep that back for your bright red highlights does that date it more precisely not necessarily because all the pigments that I've even found in this painting were available throughout the 18th century so there's nothing about the actual materials that's wrong it's the way they've been put together it's a worrying Discovery I'm Keen to know if Rupert has found any other points of comparison we've taken your X-ray that was done at the courthold we also have x-ray details which were taken in the 90s from the Fitzwilliam painting so here for example it's a lovely old bit of film if you you see the canvas weave is quite varied it's quite coarse there's a lot of distortion at the edges so that's a typical not only of marieske but canaletto guardi and other Venetian artists of the time when we turn to the X-ray of your painting you'll see that the weave looks a lot more regular it's much more of a grid and it doesn't have those big distortions at the corners it's a bit difficult to see because of the stretcher but it barely distorts at all I can see a difference in the weave it's still not entirely regular but yeah you're quite right there is a distinction the Wallace collection have a number of paintings up in this period from Venice we've been examining those very closely and there are similar canvases to this there are similar canvases to this but actually on the English copies rather than the Venetian ones I see interestingly so does that raise the possibility of an of an English hand it's only a possibility the only possibility so what do you feel Nick well I'm encouraged it's not ruled out entirely as a maresque and we haven't ruled a marieski out but we certainly haven't ruled him in with Oddities in the canvas weave and the layer structure the scientific results certainly aren't encouraging we've now assembled all our evidence provenance details from the rod Academy and Christie's that crucial Florentine wax seal and the technical findings from the courthold and Hamilton car institutes we've done all we can and it's time to go back to the gallery for the final verdict and I was hoping we'd be in a slightly better place by now if I'm honest lyric scan didn't quite get us where we want to be and then the evidence you found isn't hugely encouraging either canvas weave doesn't quite work and the layers aren't really what you'd expect so it seems that we're left with the thought that if this is a marieski then it's not a normal looking Madagascar well this is as far as we're going to get isn't it so now it's over to the expert looks like the leading expert on marieski has seen our dossier now Nick has come to hear the verdict [Music] well this is Judgment Day Nick well I'm optimistic I know a lot of work has been done and I'm really ready for anything anything at all yeah well we had two big names to conjure with guadi and marieske didn't we Philip at the beginning of all this so early on we began to realize that Francesco guardi was unlikely to be our suspect had it been by him it would have been wonderful it would have been a very valuable picture the other name is marieski and this is one that obviously we've been tussling with could we prove it to be by this artist it could be worth half a million pounds of course there's a possibility that could be by neither well which is what you said right at the beginning well At Last we're going to find out Charles Bennington is the foremost British Authority on the work of marieski and the man who authenticates his paintings for the leading auction houses he's here to deliver his opinion hello Charles hello Charles hello hello this is Nick hello so Charles have you reached your verdict I have I've given this picture a lot of thought [Music] it doesn't have the distinctive Touch of marieski or guardi and both of whom are very individual and distinctive artists I don't really feel that it can be it would be likely to be generally accepted as by either so hang on so I'm just Nick is taking this in here you're saying that next picture is not a marieski I fear not it's a composition that was originally invented by mariusky but I suppose most of the the paintings of this composition are by imitators of the same period or yeah it sounds like I mean either either contemporary or slightly later gosh how do you feel about this Nick well um I was optimistic but um I do I do understand that there are so many possibilities so if it's not by marieski have you any thoughts as to who might have painted it well my thought is that maybe it's by an English artist really one detail which supports rather strongly the idea that the artist was not Venetian is the misunderstanding of this church which has sort of become two different buildings because whoever painted this hasn't really understood that this and that a part of the same thing and that to me strongly suggests somebody who was unfamiliar with Phoenician topography and do you think that might explain the slightly strange layers that we saw beneath the picture which seemed to be a bit back to front yeah I think the artist is trying to sort of imitate the structure of the original without really understanding why so for this to be English that's florentine's seal on the back that we got so excited about has to be in some way duplicitous yes I can't help thinking that it was put on as a sort of made in Italy or stamp to disguise the fact that it was in fact made in London um to give to give it a sort of extra authenticity well I find that extraordinary but it is still a rather lovely picture it's got history it's got provenance admittedly not one that takes us back to where we want but it's got some it looks beautiful well it's a it's a token to the attractiveness of the painting that that you know it's always been taken quite seriously and as a follower of marieske a picture of a certain date I think one could value it twenty thousand pounds so it's not without work yeah well do you think your great-grandfather would make this and he was championing it as a guardi yes and he paid almost the same amount in today's money he said but um there's the dealer talking yeah you haven't lost on the investment as I said it's been part of my life since the child I'm very much attached to it would like to leave it to my children so that's how I feel really honestly well I'm sorry it was not the result that you wanted Nick we've examined it so thoroughly and so extensively that if anything it's more beautiful to me now than it was that's really lovely [Music] come so far from where we started haven't we if you think about it Nick's great grandfather thought he had a guadie he didn't Nick thought the painting had been bought in Venice it wasn't Nick hoped it was a marieski it isn't and as it turns out it was probably painted in England yes I think beneath the beautiful facade of 18th Century Venice we've come across some real murkiness but one thing that we haven't taken away from this painting is it's Allure as a work of art I mean Nick has grown up with it and loves it and whatever we've thrown at it he still thinks it's beautiful [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Perspective

Views: 137,444

Keywords: history documentaries, art history documentaries, art and culture documentary, TV Shows - Topic, art history, Documentary movies - topic, tv shows - topic

Id: gtoMTi9ZvtE

Length: 58min 34sec (3514 seconds)

Published: Sat May 06 2023