Van Dyck: What Lies Beneath Fake or Fortune?

18 million, 500,000, 19 million. At £4 million...

The art world, a place of outrageous fortune.

95, selling at 95 million.

But beneath the surface lurks danger.

I probably turned out about 200 fakes over a six, seven year period.

You were committing fraud on a grand scale.

International art dealer Philip Mould 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.

Our latest case takes us into new territory

as we hunt for a painting hidden within a painting.

There's something going on under here, isn't there?

Philip is staking his reputation on what might be the find of his life.

I've lost the ability to look at it critically.

You know, I feel like a mother with her baby. I mean, I...

I can't see it as anything other than beautiful.

It's a portrait of a tragic queen, Henrietta Maria,

wife of King Charles I.

Could it be the work of Sir Anthony Van Dyck,

the man who revolutionised English art?

He's like a film director. It's almost as if he's just shouted, "Action!"

To unravel the mystery,

we must peel back layers of paint in search of a lost masterpiece.

Has something gone terribly wrong? It looks a right old mess.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, please!

I love the excitement of chasing down a story.

And working with art dealer Philip Mould has introduced me to a new world of intrigue.

This time, it's his own painting which is wrapped in mystery.

Philip's called me to an unusual location where he promises all will be revealed.

Philip, what's this all about? Why do you want me to meet you in a hospital?

-Well, thanks for asking! I'm fine, but I have a patient who needs help.

-THEY LAUGH

She's a woman with a predicament.

She's more than just your average woman.

-She's the Queen of England, Henrietta Maria.

-Charles I's wife.

It's a lovely painting. Beautiful face.

But why have you brought her to a hospital?

Well, I believe there's more going on in this than first meets the eye.

Here we go again!

Art dealers and doctors aren't such unusual bedfellows.

In the days before portable X-ray units,

this was where you came to get your paintings scanned.

To help with MY diagnosis, we're using one of the most sophisticated X-ray machines available.

Once the real patients have had their turn,

radiologist Anton Ivanic is on hand to help.

Do you get many patients like this, Anton?

A first for everything!

So what are we looking at here? Is this the edge of the painting?

What we're seeing here is something I really hoped we were going to come across.

But as clear as a bell, you can see

a 90 degree angle of the corner of a smaller canvas.

In other words, this picture is not as it seems.

This is the edge of a picture within the painting?

Exactly.

And if you have a look at the inner canvas, the darker one,

it's slightly earlier, in my view.

It's a bit cruder.

But why would anyone want to take a smaller portrait and make it bigger?

I mean, just for cosmetic reasons?

Possibly, but we won't really know until we have a closer look

at what might lie beneath.

Because in the process of putting the smaller canvas into the bigger canvas,

it's quite possible they have painted over what lies therein.

Wow, so not only is there a painting within a painting,

-this smaller painting could be of something different?

-Exactly.

It turns out Philip is hoping that this is what he calls a "sleeper".

A sleeper is an object that passes mis-catalogued through the auction rooms into the hands of someone

who knows its real identity. Either the subject has been overlooked

or the artist has been misunderstood.

On the bottom of my screen, Anton,

I can see something that looks quite interesting.

Is there any way of moving in a bit closer?

Yes!

So what is that? What's...?

What are we looking at here? What's going on here?

Those are all brush strokes, and it's describing a different type of shape,

possibly a different type of composition.

The first hint that this picture might hide a secret came when Bendor Grosvenor,

Philip's eagle-eyed head of research, spotted it online in an auction catalogue.

It was catalogued as after Sir Anthony Van Dyck,

the estimate 4-6,000. And I just saw it in the catalogue, and being a Van Dyck anorak,

I just wanted to check what we were dealing with here.

And the first thing I noticed was

how much better painted the face was than the body.

The body made no sense at all. Awful hands, awkwardly painted clothes,

but the face still shone out.

So there's two mysteries here - why was this smaller painting enlarged in this way?

As we can see. And what actually this smaller painting is of.

What lies underneath the paint that we can see now?

Well, I know you've accused me in the past of being over-optimistic,

but my hunch is that is that there's a possibility

that lying beneath is a genuine work

by the greatest portrait painter at work in the 17th century - Van Dyck.

We have to think carefully

about how much we're going to commit to buying a sleeper.

You can very quickly spend a lot of money,

but nothing drives an art dealer forward like optimism and hope that they think they've found the big one.

Like all speculations at that stage,

we couldn't be sure, and I gave Bendor an amount to bid on.

What I think he doesn't know is that

I was particularly excited about this picture

and I was going to go some way ahead of what we'd agreed.

'£7,000 on the telephone. At £7,000...

'Last chance. 7,000 and selling.

'7,000.'

That's Bendor's happy face, in case you were wondering.

His and Philip's shared passion for Van Dyck means they've bought

multi-million pound works by the artist, including his self-portrait.

-Even on the floor, it looks amazing, doesn't it?

-Mm.

This Flemish painter spent less than ten years here,

but he revolutionised British art.

He painted King Charles I and his wife Henrietta Maria

in a tumultuous age just before the Civil War.

Only a few years later, the King was executed outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall,

and Henrietta Maria, reviled for her Catholic faith, was exiled,

mourning her beloved husband.

Van Dyck captured the dramatic, flamboyant spirit of the age.

No wonder art dealers get excited about him!

At Philip's gallery, we've met up with Bendor to get to the bottom of their latest high-stakes gamble.

£7,000 sounds like a lot of money to me.

It's about the right price

for a picture that's a copy done, possibly, who knows,

a century later.

But there's more to this picture. You'll recall the X-ray.

It showed there was a smaller image beneath.

If I bring up the X-ray over the part of the picture here,

you can see that there's parts of the brush strokes

that match the painting on top.

But there's other brush strokes, if I bring those up,

which make no sense at all to the painting on top.

So it suggests to me that there's another painting underneath.

-Do you have any idea what it could be?

-We have an inkling.

Well, the first thing I noticed when I saw the picture in the catalogue

was it's unusual for a portrait of Henrietta Maria.

She's normally facing the other direction, and she never usually wears a crown.

This is a full-length of her with her servant.

And this is a picture at Chequers, the prime minister's house.

But then I remembered that some years ago,

Philip had sold another picture of Henrietta Maria where she's looking the same way.

-And she's also wearing a crown.

-Oh, I see.

So the head's the same? But the body, obviously, is different.

Yes. In other words, the blue dress is painted over the original composition.

Hang on a minute though, this was sold at a major auction house.

And you spotted it, what, and no-one else did?

Well, of course, we could be wrong.

And also, I mean, it is comprehensively hidden in my view.

Here's where it gets a little bit complicated.

Going back to our X-ray again, can you see in the bottom right corner

there's a dark shadow going up?

Now, it happens to go up in the same place as the arm in the picture

that Philip sold before. So that suggests to me that

underneath our painting is another arm, going in the same place.

So you think, what,

-it's going to be exactly the same painting?

-Yes.

This composition is known in at least seven paintings.

But they're all copies. And I've got four of them here.

Crucially, none have been accepted as a genuine work by Van Dyck,

so there must be an original from which all of these derive.

So you think the painting you've found could be, what,

this lost original Van Dyck?

And then someone's painted over it? Why would they do that?

I mean, it's not uncommon. Sounds bizarre, but people did paint over pictures.

Thing is, though, normally when we look at paintings,

we're looking at other people's paintings.

This time, we're looking at YOUR painting you've bought with YOUR money.

So we're going to have to approach this in a rather different way,

because you have so much to gain, and, conversely, so much to lose.

So, you know, we can't just take - in the nicest possible way - just take your words for it.

We're going to have to bring in an independent expert, at the very least, to have a look at it.

I mean, that's crucial. I mean, we would want to do that

any time that one is trying to re-present a major new work of art.

We've got to have the connoisseurs.

But I hope you'll treat me gently on this.

Hmm, I wouldn't be so sure! This will be the toughest of scrutiny, Philip.

Well, it's got to be, though, hasn't it? It absolutely has to be.

And first of all, can we find out if there actually is something underneath this painting?

Well, we need to do some tests.

I'm taking the painting to University College London to Libby Sheldon,

a specialist in paint analysis with a keen interest in Van Dyck.

Usually, when I look at paint samples,

I'm hoping to confirm a particular period or perhaps detect a fake.

This time it's a little different.

What I'd like to find are samples that show two completely different layers of paint -

one painting on top of another.

What I'm looking for are cracks in the paint

in order to be able to take minimal samples.

That's interesting.

So, you're actually examining or taking a sample from an area

where nature has already started, as it were.

Libby's taking microscopic samples from the paint layers on the canvas.

They'll be preserved in resin blocks,

each block cut and polished by hand,

so she doesn't lose any of the precious paint.

At the same time, she's taken some minute flakes of individual colours

to find out precisely what pigments have been used.

The first discovery comes from the face - a blue called azurite,

typical of the early 17th century and frequently used by Van Dyck.

But Libby's next find is from what I believe to be the later paint.

Well, I can see some very distinct blobs of blue.

Yes, it's from the upper painting, from the dress,

and it's Prussian blue.

And it has a very secure date, because it was produced after 1704.

That's really nice clarity.

So we're looking at something that was at least done 50 years after Van Dyck dies.

-So that really clearly establishes that the dress is much later.

-Exactly.

What we've got here is a sample from her shoulder,

and it shows quite clearly the Prussian blue on the top.

And then a layer between that and a lower layer,

which is translucent layer, probably varnish, probably an old varnish.

And underneath that a mixed red.

In other words, two pictures - the picture on top and another picture beneath the thing

-we've been looking for.

-Exactly.

Now armed with this evidence, I can't wait to get to work

revealing that hidden painting.

What are you planning to do next?

Well, as they say in the trade, there is a brilliant clean in this.

We know that already because we've done a small test in the top right-hand corner,

on the outer area.

The area which we'll probably discard if all goes well.

Now, keep that in mind,

look at the face of Henrietta Maria

and see what the changes that could be brought about might be there.

But the thing is, you've got to take the paint off...

The, what, 18th-century paint? ..to reveal, you hope, 17th-century paint below that.

How are you going to take one layer of paint off and not the other?

Cor, you know how to ruin my fun, don't you?

That's the really difficult bit, and that's the bit I'm genuinely extremely worried about.

I mean, getting 18th-century paint off 17th-century paint,

and it's like taking a layer of one type of rock off another.

I mean, it's extremely difficult.

So, is it worth it?

If this were just any 17th-century picture lying beneath, I would probably say no.

But look at the stakes here.

I mean, we have the opportunity, possibly,

to get to the greatest artist at work in England in the 17th century.

You know, Sir Anthony Van Dyck! I mean, not just England, but Europe.

In this case, it's a risk worth taking.

So off goes Queen Henrietta Maria to Rebecca Gregg,

a conservator experienced in such challenges.

She's agreed to take on the arduous task of stripping first the varnish

and then the 18th-century paint.

It is such a such a beautiful image, isn't it?

I mean, regardless of anything else, that dirt, that varnish

was obscuring so much that one just couldn't even see

and couldn't even feel.

These discoloured varnish layers always obscure any modelling and completely flatten the image.

So they destroy the character, really, of a portrait.

It's like rediscovering a new person when you clean it off.

Now for the point of no return. Time to put Henrietta Maria under the knife.

OK, so this really is the moment of truth now.

So we're going to be taking off that rock-hard 18th-century paint.

And with a prayer, we'll get to a 17th-century layer.

Yeah. It's the most tricky thing that you could possibly do, really.

I mean, of course, the other thing that occurs to me is

you have to keep really focused over a long period of time.

I mean, this is open heart surgery over not just a day or few days, but weeks, months!

Yes, the safest way to remove anything like this is to simply go down layer by layer.

Rebecca is using a solvent gel which breaks down the top layer of paint.

It should allow her to remove the 18th-century layer

without damaging what might lie beneath.

It requires perfect timing and a steady hand.

Here we go.

That is definitely pink that's coming through!

That's presumably part of the wrist or the hand that's covered by the blue dress!

It is, and it's great to have a distinct change in colour.

I have to say, Rebecca, you know, watching this is compelling,

but it's also extremely stressful.

I think it's probably about time I left you to it, actually.

I've got a long wait ahead of me. It will take MONTHS of work

to remove the vast expanse of overpaint.

Standing behind Rebecca's shoulder has been the most uplifting experience.

I'm now absolutely positive that emerging from beneath the grime are the strokes of Van Dyck.

I mean, they're incontrovertibly of such quality, I really can't see why they're not.

Bold claims from Philip, but what will the art world make of it?

Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, is intrigued.

Well, let's suppose that when this is cleaned, that out pops

what looks very much like an authentic, an autographed Van Dyck.

How seriously will everyone take it? Well, there are problems.

If it's a dealer presenting it to the world as an authentic Van Dyck, obviously,

many, many people are going to say, "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?

"He wants it to be a Van Dyck."

And so, to a certain extent, he's got a battle on his hands.

One of the risks of being in the sleeper-hunter business is you tend to annoy a lot of people.

You irritate the person who sold it, you irritate the auction house who missed it,

you irritate your fellow dealers who didn't spot it.

So you've got a whole host of people who are lining up to take a kick at you if they think you're wrong.

He must get it authenticated or accepted by what are still called independent scholars.

And that means academics, people who don't give their opinion for money.

Who knows, IF there is a whole Van Dyck underneath,

that would be a sensation.

To show me just what all the fuss is about,

Philip's brought me to Wilton House,

home to a spectacular collection of art charting the history of English portraits.

This is the sort of portraiture that people

were used to in England before Van Dyck arrived.

Simplified and oddly static.

-And rather wooden.

-Yes.

'Wilton's grandest room was designed by the 4th Earl of Pembroke,

'one of Charles I's most powerful courtiers,

'specifically to house the paintings of Sir Anthony Van Dyck.

'It includes his largest and most ambitious work.'

Wow! Gosh!

Isn't it incredible? This expresses in one great statement

just what Van Dyck brought to England.

How he just transformed the whole way we see ourselves.

Wow, it is...epic.

He's like a film director. It's almost as if he's just shouted "Action!"

You know, everyone's beginning to move, everyone has a role and a purpose, and they all lock together.

So in the centre, OK, we've got the Earl and his wife.

The Earl looking every inch the powerhouse.

And you can see on the stage, moving towards the Earl and Countess,

the two elder brothers. This is where the future dynasty lies.

And do you notice how their father is pointing down

in that very indicative way to that ultimate prize?

This is a portrait of Lady Mary Villiers,

who was ward of court of Charles I. Effectively, an adopted royal child.

If I'm not mistaken, that's Charles I and Henrietta Maria

flanking either sides of the painting.

Why are they here in relation to Van Dyck?

Because that's why Van Dyck came over here.

His job is to create images to bolster not only the King,

but his consort Henrietta Maria.

In a way, he portrays them

as they would like to be portrayed to the nation.

And that's the whole point about Van Dyck.

Charles I and Henrietta Maria are a perfect example of people

who do look slightly idiosyncratic. Very slightly strange.

Yes, her niece described her as having teeth that protruded like "guns from a fort"!

-I love that description.

-Yes.

But the thing about Van Dyck, the reason people liked him,

was that he could catch a face with its best expression on it.

These are all believable individuals,

but they're individuals at their most elevated, at their most powerful.

I mean, it's been estimated that he produced something like

400 pictures, paintings, portraits while he was over here.

The demand for images of the royal family

and for replicas of other portraits, even people like the Pembrokes,

was so much that he had to use a sort of delegation process

which is called the studio practice.

I mean, it was physically impossible for one man

to be able to produce that amount of work.

So, could you own a Van Dyck by degrees, then?

So, have a painting that's done entirely by the great master,

one that's done, what, partly by him, partly by his assistants,

then ones done entirely by his assistants?

And then ones that weren't by anyone to do with Van Dyck?

-Was that how it worked?

-Precisely.

And there were some patrons, there were some clients,

who insisted that Van Dyck did it all himself.

Today, it's the hand of the master that makes all the difference,

not just in the quality, but also the value of a painting.

Pure Van Dycks are known as "autograph". They can be worth millions.

Works created by his assistants are known as "studio" Van Dyck,

and copies made by other artists as "after" Van Dyck.

It can take a trained eye to tell them apart.

-Where does your Henrietta Maria fit into this spectrum?

-She's looking interesting.

Some results have come through from Rebecca, and you can see now that the varnish has been removed.

And beneath, we can see quite good quality brush strokes.

In fact, I'd even go further.

I would say some very exciting paint strokes.

Now, with any luck, this could be a real, pure, 100% Van Dyck.

Wow. So you could gain MASSIVELY from this picture.

And what about the history of the painting? Have you found out anything about that?

As I've said before,

the back of the picture can tell you more than the front.

On the back of this picture, we have got quite a few possible clues.

All sorts of labels and stickers and things scribbled on the back.

I've had a little bit of luck with this one on the right-hand side here.

There's a chalk date and that links to the stencil on the top.

The picture was sold at Christie's in 1956.

And there, it was actually called Van Dyck in full, but the identification,

rather unhelpfully, was just "Portrait of a lady in a blue dress".

So it could be that this picture hasn't actually been called Henrietta Maria for hundreds of years.

Great. What about who sold that painting?

Well, it was consigned by a lady called Mrs Kingsley,

and here's her name on a label at the back of the picture.

But the picture didn't actually sell, and went straight into storage afterwards.

And who was she, and who did she buy it from?

I'm afraid there, I haven't got a clue.

Well, this is a massive problem, isn't it?

We always bang on about the importance of documentation and provenance

and you've hardly got any.

But you can't always get provenance for an Old Master.

It's not like dealing with an impressionist.

We're dealing with something 300 years old or more.

That's all very well, but for a painting that was painted in the 1600s,

I'd like to go a bit further back than 1956!

Well, I may be able to help you there,

because there's two further clues on the back of the picture. I don't know if you can see at the top,

there are these two little labels which are partly covered by another piece of paper

and also partly ripped off.

But I reckon we may be able to peel these off and hopefully they can

tell us a little bit more about the picture's history.

And we're also aided by the fact that there are a number of copies, replicas, variants.

Now, if you take that line of enquiry, look into some of those, might come up with a few answers.

All right, well I'll start from the 17th century and work forwards.

-You're going to start from 1956 and work backwards.

-Mm-hmm.

-Who knows, we might meet in the middle!

We might indeed.

Bendor has set Rebecca the challenge of uncovering the mysterious labels

which could be the key to discovering our painting's history.

-Hi, Rebecca.

-Hi.

-Now then, these labels.

If we can't get these off,

that's my last chance of finding anything out about the provenance and history.

-SHE GIGGLES

-Sorry, no pressure, then!

Yeah, no pressure(!) It looks like someone else has already tried to have a go.

-I mean, we've got lots of rips and tears here.

-Mm.

-Well, it looks like they've just tried to remove them entirely.

-Yeah.

Well, let's at least hope that it reveals something

before 1956 and perhaps in the 19th century.

Well, the older, the better. The older the glue, the more degraded, and the easier it is to come off.

Well, it looks pretty ancient, so fingers crossed.

Rebecca applies a pad saturated with water,

slowly soaking the labels in the hope that they can be peeled off.

Meanwhile, I've been doing some research on Henrietta Maria,

and found she was a controversial queen.

This French princess arrived for her marriage in England aged just 15,

with a mission from the Pope to convert Protestant England and the King to Catholicism.

An explosive ambition.

Now, I want to know why our picture might have been painted over,

and I'm on the trail of the image Philip and Bendor believe lies beneath.

It seems this painting might contain hidden messages.

There's a later copy of the picture at Queen's College, Oxford,

and historian Dr Erin Griffey is going to help me decode it.

What's it tell us about Henrietta Maria?

Well, in my mind, it is the most significant portrait

in terms of understanding what really mattered to the Queen.

And, certainly, at the heart of her sort of personal identity, was her devotion to religion.

Her Catholicism.

It is an incredibly unusual image of her

in that she's shown as the St Catherine.

And who was St Catherine?

St Catherine was a princess who was tried for her faith, for her Christianity,

-on the Catherine wheel and when...

-Which was a form of torture, wasn't it?

Which was a form of torture, but such was divine providence,

the wheel didn't work, the wheel broke,

and by touching the wheel, Henrietta Maria's showing God's favour.

And presumably, she relates to it or she related to it

because she was a Catholic in a Protestant country,

she was a lone voice, as this St Catherine was.

-A lone Christian voice.

-Yes.

-In a world of pagans, as she saw it.

Absolutely. She's clearly likening herself to Catherine in her ability

to create conversions at court from very principled courtiers.

-Which was hugely unpopular.

-Hugely unpopular, and it rattled the King's advisers and even the King himself.

-So this is a very controversial image, then.

-Yes, absolutely.

It's a kind of brazen proclamation of her Catholicism?

-Yes.

-Other than the Catherine wheel,

what other symbolism is there in this portrait?

Well, the most important thing may seem self-evident, but it's actually very interesting.

She's wearing the coronet.

Keep in mind, Henrietta Maria was never crowned, because she refused

to be crowned in a Protestant church, in a Protestant ceremony.

-It's a piece of propaganda, isn't it?

-Absolutely, yes.

It was never clear to me why Philip's painting of Henrietta Maria

would've been overpainted quite so comprehensively.

But it's clear to me now that it's not so much a portrait of a queen

as a piece of Catholic propaganda, and even by the time we get to the 18th century,

that's still very controversial, very inflammatory,

and having a portrait of the queen is one thing, but having an image like that is quite another.

And certainly, it's at least one very good reason why that painting

would've been painted over in that way.

Back in London Philip's received images

of what's starting to emerge from under the later paint

and it looks like he was right.

I've got some photographs through on the progress of the picture

and I have to say, fingers crossed,

it's looking exactly as I'd hoped.

You can see very clearly what is a piece of anatomy, her forearm,

the forearm that sort of leans on the Catherine wheel.

and that's a slice of it there

and it's exactly the right place and the type of colour I'd have hoped

and then just below the forearm,

where it's revealed, a little bit to the left, is a flash of red.

A brilliant little flash of red, it looks like a sort of uncut ruby,

a sort of stone that has yet to be polished.

Now that is unquestionably the beginning of the drapery,

that really rich attire that defines the image. You know,

she, she's a very ornate-looking queen.

The back of the painting is also revealing its secrets.

Bendor and Rebecca are within a whisper of uncovering those labels.

They may tell us who once owned the picture.

We can just about do it.

Hey we're off.

-Fantastic, I can see...

-A dragon.

-I can see a dragon.

Definitely part of a coat of arms.

Very clear, isn't it?

-Yes, well, you can see where it's been protected from the dirt.

-Yes.

Nothing underneath.

Oh...swizz!

Looks like we're not going to get any more motto.

But we've got the rest of the crest.

We just need the faintest scratch of an address on that one.

What have we got?

-Not much, is the answer.

-Not much.

We've got the end of an H and a comma and that's it.

Nothing at all.

Just take this second upper label off now.

Right, here we go. Anything after the H?

-Restorer.

-Restorer! Fantastic!

H, comma, restorer.

-1820.

-Maybe they were established in 1820.

And one deduces that it's a short name, ending in H.

In fact, hang on, so it must have been...

..a very short name.

The only dealer I can think of with a short name ending in H is Smith.

I know that sounds like a really common name,

but one of the biggest art dealers in the 19th century was John Smith.

And he was also based in New Bond street

and it looks like, it says here, NE for New

and ET, ending for Street.

So, um, that'll be my first place to look, I think.

Back in Oxford, I'm hoping to match Bendor's progress

on the labels in my own quest.

Erin has brought me to the Bodleian Library

to search for the original portrait of Henrietta Maria

in the 17th-century records of the royal palaces.

'This is an inventory compiled in 1639 by the keeper of pictures,

Abraham van der Doort.

And he went through the royal palaces

and created an incredibly detailed list

of the pictures and precisely where they hung,

which room and in the margins,

he also often mentions the provenance.

For example this is, "Item, the Queen Mother of France picture

"so big as the life."

So this is very typical of van der Doort's entries

for these various pictures.

-"Done..." Oh! "Done by Anthony Van Dyck."

-Right.

It says "Done by Anthony Van Dyck beyond the seas."

This is a picture he would've done in Antwerp or in Italy

and if you look at the right-hand margin,

these are the dimensions of the various pictures,

so with Philip's picture, what we'd really like to find

is a very detailed reference

saying, Van Dyck, a portrait of Henrietta Maria

-as St Catherine.

-Well, is it here? No!

Frustratingly, it is not here!

Is the Henrietta Maria portrait in any inventories?

Unfortunately, not explicitly.

There is nothing by that description in any inventory

that I have consulted.

There are several instances of portraits of Henrietta Maria

by Van Dyck in the 1650s and 1660s.

Which could be our painting,

but they're so unspecifically listed, we can't tell.

Exactly, that is absolutely possible.

How frustrating.

Things aren't going much better for Philip.

He's working abroad,

and he's just received disturbing news from Rebecca, the restorer.

It's the end of a busy day here in Hamburg

and I've just had an e-mail from Becky.

She's halfway through the conservation,

the first stages of conservation.

The alarming thing is

it looks as though some of the paint has been damaged.

I'm not sure why or how.

It's difficult to make sense from these images.

I wish I wasn't hundreds of miles away from home.

I wish I was there with Becky in the studio now

trying to make sense of what's coming to light.

I suppose at least I can console myself that the head is beautiful,

but goodness knows what's emerging

from beneath the rest of the painting.

I'm heading back to London as soon as I can.

I'm not sure what Rebecca has revealed,

but it could be an expensive disaster.

A few days later, Philip calls me to the gallery.

He's had some time to examine the picture

and thinks he's made a dramatic discovery.

Has something gone terribly wrong?

This is not looking good, is it?

And here.

The first thing you've got to realise

is you're looking at the patient halfway through the operation,

before it's been stitched up.

I think the patient is critical, by the looks of things.

Well, I'm going to need to explain it a bit then.

I mean, when Rebecca sent me images of this

as it was beginning to emerge

and I was looking at an area, like this around the hand,

I mean, they terrified me when I first saw them,

because we hadn't removed enough around them

for me to gain an impression of anything other than the fact

that we were revealing a damaged, a wrecked picture.

Well, looking at the hair, I mean, that looks pretty damaged.

Yes, certainly there is a tiny bit of damage in the hair

and you can see it in the lines, running across.

That's mechanical damage.

But the really exciting and important point is

as you move your eye down the hair

you can see unfinished areas, drawing lines.

In other words, this is an unfinished picture,

a picture to which the artist perhaps would one day return,

although I need a lot more paint to be taken off

before I get a real understanding of the balance of what's finished.

Well, it's not looking great, I've got to be honest.

I know you think I'm just putting a brave face on this,

but for me, at least, an unfinished picture

that shows you the artist's process,

that gives you a sort of, a glimpse into the mind

of a great figure like Van Dyck, if it is by Van Dyck...

..is to my mind more interesting

and in really, in another way more appealing,

particularly to a sophisticated 21st-century audience,

who actually likes to know how artists work.

Oh, Philip! Come on, I mean, if you had the choice

between it being finished and perfect and by Van Dyck

or being a, you know half-finished version,

I mean, obviously you'd go for a finished version, course you would!

I'm feeling quite vulnerable, actually, to tell you the truth.

I mean, I'm working with Fiona, she's keeping me focused

on the real issues. I'm doing my best to persuade her

and at the same time, I think, possibly persuade myself as well,

but what's different about this is I'm giving people access

to a process that's normally very much behind closed doors.

And if I do get it wrong, in a very provable way,

well, it doesn't, it doesn't do my reputation much good

and I, and I rather, sort of, pride myself,

at least sometimes, on getting it right.

I've never seen Philip looking so worried.

The painting's obviously got to him.

If the painting is unfinished,

it might explain why our picture was painted over.

It also makes removing the over-paint much more difficult.

The restoration process has changed.

No more solvents. It's just scalpels and water.

Jo Gorlov has joined Rebecca for this slow, difficult work.

Meanwhile, Bendor's been working on the provenance of the picture.

I've failed to trace it in the 17th-century documents,

but can HE find that vital link to Van Dyck's time?

I've come to the National Art Library to see how he's getting on.

-Hi, Bendor, how are you?

-All right. Thanks for coming along.

So what have we got here?

We've got the labels which we peeled off the back of the picture.

So this is, what, a dragon here, isn't it?

I think it may be a wyvern.

A wyvern. That's a new one to me(!)

-You've got to learn your heraldry!

-Right! Come on, then.

I'll give you a crash course in heraldry.

So what we can do, we've got two tiny fragments of a word

from the beginning of a motto underneath,

-which has then been torn out.

-"Par sit."

-That's not a lot to go on, is it?

-No.

So, we've got a general armoury,

which will allow us to look up the mottos

-that begin with...

-Par sit.

-..Par sit.

Here we go. Par sit...

Par sit fortuna labori.

And these names here

are what, three families for whom that is their motto?

Exactly.

So we've already nailed it down to Buchanan, Lowman and Palmer.

So what we need to do now is find out which one of those three

had that rather scary-looking bird as their main crest.

This is Burg's peerage here. Right.

-Let's have a look.

-Have a gander.

-Buchanan, Buchanan, no, this is not it.

-No?

Lowman? No. Right, P for Palmer.

This is our only chance. Here we go, same motto.

Oh, I see.

-Family motto, Palmer of Carlton.

-How extraordinary.

Rather fortunately, this coat of arms label

was stuck on top of this label, the restorer.

Now we've only got the fragment of the H to go with,

but you can just about make out 137...

-New something street.

-Right.

Well, the dealer Smith, John Smith was at 137 New Bond Street.

-SHE GASPS

-Bendor!

If you think about it, we're so lucky,

because from all these fragments we've got just enough information

-to go there.

-That is incredible.

Fortunately, the firm of John Smith, which worked in England in the 19th century,

kept everything in stock books and notebooks,

some of which we've got here.

OK, come on then!

Right, so we've got all his clients listed. Major Corbett,

Mrs Bacon...

HE MUMBLES

-Right, the Reverend F Palmer.

-"Sold, the Reverend F Palmer..."

Oh! "Portrait of Henrietta Maria."

-Henrietta Maria.

-July 26th...

Mmm. We're in 1888.

Gosh, fantastic.

So we've found an owner for our painting 120 years ago,

The Reverend F Palmer, and we know who he got it from.

The question is, can we go even further back

and find out who Smith, the art dealer, bought the painting from?

So, in the few years before Palmer bought it,

we can see if Smith... had a picture,

so we'll start here in 1884.

Search as we might, our picture isn't recorded here.

The trail goes cold in 1888.

-Nope, it ain't there.

-Oh...

-It was looking promising for a moment.

-You've done brilliantly.

I mean, it's such a clever and neat piece of detective work.

It's now, I feel,

-we're just so close just want to get that bit further back.

-Yeah.

So with no provenance to help link the painting to Van Dyck

it's time to go to Philip's gallery,

to see what more the picture itself is revealing.

This is the picture, largely stripped down.

It certainly has come an incredibly long way

when you compare it to what it was and you still think it's unfinished?

Yes, because Rebecca and Jo

have uncovered more of the unfinished area round the hand.

You can see the bold brown under drawing outline around the fingers.

And you're certain you've not just taken too much paint off?

Look, I know that's what you think, but it's not the case

and nor is it the case that the picture beneath

that we're revealing is destroyed.

Have a look at the hair.

That's the real tell-tale to me.

Why? Because you can see the red drawing lines on the edge.

This is like looking at a sort of stripped-down engine,

this is the first stage of the technical process

of putting together a picture. That's not damage.

And the fact that it's unfinished, then,

is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I think the fact it's unfinished is quite helpful here,

because we know what we're seeing

matches Van Dyck's described technique.

He used to use this translucent brown umber paint

to draw in the outline of his compositions.

Crucially, though, if the picture was unfinished,

it could not have left his studio during his lifetime,

he would never have licensed that.

Well, that's why I wondered

if we might find some hint of our picture

in Van Dyck's estate,

his possessions, the list of the pictures he had after he died.

Sounds intriguing.

Can we?

Yes, because there's a number of lists recording

what Van Dyck had in the studio after he died.

And in this one, it says the Queen Mary's picture,

which means Henrietta Maria.

One of them, it says quite interestingly

"conceived to be an original"

by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, valued at £20.

There's another one, again of Henrietta Maria, valued at £4,

so it's an interesting distinction even then between the value

of what's thought to be an original and then a workshop copy.

So which might your painting be, then?

The £20 original or the £4 copy?

There's only one way of telling, and that's the painting's quality.

So, we might have taken our picture all the way back to Van Dyck's studio,

but, frustratingly, it's not enough.

The painting's authenticity will now rest solely on how it looks.

I want to talk it over with the man in charge

of some of Britain's most important paintings.

He won't be drawn on Philip's picture, but he does have

the delicate job of deciding the authenticity of many Old Masters -

Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery.

He's brought me to see a work by Van Dyck's favourite artist, Titian.

So this is The Vendramin Family by Titian,

one of the most famous paintings by Titian in the National Gallery.

The one thing I think has changed,

at least in my understanding of this painting,

is that it's not in fact entirely by Titian.

Oh, I see, so it came to you as a Titian,

and you've decided to downgrade it?

A little bit - I think it's one of the greatest things he painted,

but I don't think he painted all of it.

The children, for me, are a real problem,

especially the three on the left.

They're quite awkward, those faces, aren't they?

I mean, siblings do look alike,

but it's very unfortunate they've all got this terrible chin,

and it seems to me to be not painted from life.

And, above all,

I think those three figures really damage the spatial effect.

Now, what interests me about this is Van Dyck owned this painting.

Charles I wanted to own this painting.

It was one of the big prizes of the international art market

in the first half of the 17th century,

and for centuries it was just the great family painting by Titian.

And I suppose no-one wanted it not to be completely by Titian.

Well, I think it's really important for it not to be,

because it doesn't do him justice to think that those are by him,

so I'm on Titian's side when I put "Titian and workshop" on the label.

We're looking at a Van Dyck and trying to assess

whether or not it is actually by Van Dyck.

These kind of decisions come to you on a pretty frequent basis.

What would you need to see to convince you?

Primarily, it would be a question of the artist's style.

So, when it comes to provenance and science,

those would be eclipsed by just what it looked like?

It would have to be, because this painting

is one of the best authenticated Titians in the world.

It was described as a Titian in Titian's lifetime,

and we know exactly where it's been every moment since,

and always described as a Titian.

And yet, you say it's not entirely by Titian, despite all that.

The best bits of it have got to be by him.

So, when it comes to this Van Dyck,

it would come down to connoisseurship, in your view,

and even though - with the best will in the world -

connoisseurs do change their minds, that's...

so frustratingly, in my eyes, that's what it would come down to.

I think it would come down to that, I really do, yes.

The end is in sight.

Jo and Rebecca have been working for four months removing the over-paint.

Finally, the picture beneath is fully exposed.

Wow!

This is so much better than last time I saw it.

It's like there's a window in the middle of the canvas

and a completely different woman is looking out of it.

It must have been a hell of a lot of work.

Over 500 hours and over 1,000 scalpel blades.

I mean, she's truly been under the knife.

-What do you think of it now?

-To tell you the truth,

I've lost the ability to look at it critically.

I feel like a mother with her baby. I mean, I...

I can't see it as anything other than beautiful.

Is there much more to do?

There are still areas of over-paint that need to be removed.

And there's lots of tiny little specks of paints

and some tiny little losses which are all taking the eye,

but at least we can see what we're dealing with now, roughly.

I mean, we're looking at it through very misty glass.

I mean, I've never taken on such an ambitious campaign as this.

I mean, it's...

Well, it's so rare in the business.

First, we've got to get the picture back to its original size,

so I've sent it to be relined by Lucien Ray.

It's a pretty dramatic process,

which starts with tissue being glued to the front of the picture.

The old stretcher is removed...

and the unwanted edges cut off.

The later canvas layers are scraped from the back

to allow a new banking and a stretcher to be added.

Then the painting returns to Rebecca's workshop,

and the long task of restoring the paint surface begins.

Finally, after six months, the painting is finished -

and just in time.

Henrietta Maria has to look her best for a very important visitor

who's coming today Britain's leading expert on Van Dyck.

So, here we are, six months on.

I have to say, she's looking pretty good.

You like her now, do you?

The face was always beautiful, and now it is even more beautiful.

I have to say, I'm absolutely delighted with the way that

that face has come together, and also other aspects of the picture.

And it's funny, because your emotions go up and down like a yo-yo during restoration,

and there were moments I thought, "Oh, my God, she's not going to make it.

"She's not going to be the woman we think she is."

But I have to say, now... now I believe she is.

We have one of the great independent experts

who's going to be coming along any minute to look at this painting.

There's so much at stake, isn't there?

How much have you spent, first of all, on this?

You were totting it up, weren't you, Bendor?

I think we're close on £25,000.

-So, that's what, £25,000 for the restoration?

-Yeah.

And how much did you pay for her?

-Just over £7,000.

-Right, OK.

And also, we put on a rather magnificent frame.

-So, 32 grand, plus frame.

-Plus frame.

If it turns out that this, in the view of our independent expert,

is a Van Dyck studio...

How are you going to feel about that? Is that a disaster?

No, I think I'd be satisfied with that.

And, as to value,

well, for a studio work of this quality,

we could be talking £200-£300,000.

And if it's Van Dyck and studio?

What kind of value would we be talking there?

I think we could be talking very high hundreds,

possibly even to the million pound mark.

And if he says it's not by Van Dyck and not even studio...?

If this is deemed to be just a copy, it's a thumping loss.

I mean, we couldn't get anything like what we paid for it.

Well, he's going to be here any minute,

-so, feeling nervous?

-Yeah.

OK, I admit it, I'm concerned.

It all rests on one man -

Director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Britain's top authority

on Van Dyck's English works, Dr Christopher Brown.

He's studied the artist for over 30 years,

curated important exhibitions,

published some of the definitive books,

so he's likely to be a very exacting judge.

-Hello. Very good to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

Philip and Bendor are now holed up in Philip's office

with Christopher Brown, the independent expert.

It's such an incredibly sensitive process.

And Christopher Brown wants to have a look at the painting

and familiarise himself with the process it's gone through

to get to this point before he tells us what he thinks.

And Philip is...

urbane as always,

but I know, underneath it all, he's very nervous.

Yeah, there's a lot of jeopardy here, actually.

I just want...

want it to cease, I just want to find out what the answer is.

30 minutes of close consideration later,

Dr Brown is ready to give us his opinion.

What are your first impressions of the painting?

Well, it's very exciting to see the picture for the first time,

as I'm doing today, since it emerged from the conservation studio.

I think the most striking thing for me

is the unfinished nature of the picture.

You can see very clearly where he's outlined the hand,

and you see again, very importantly, there is a strong black line

down the side of the face,

very characteristic of Van Dyck and the way he worked.

And what happens then, of course, is in the final stage of painting,

he softens that line.

And these kind of almost tricks of the trade that are employed,

again this is what Van Dyck would have taught to his pupils and his assistants,

so it doesn't take you to the man himself,

but it places the picture rather firmly within the studio of Van Dyck.

I have to say, that's very reassuring,

considering that we bought it as just a copy of a Van Dyck.

I mean, to move it to within the orbit of the great man is progress.

The face is something that struck you very strongly, Philip, and myself.

Do you think this could be by Van Dyck?

This is a very delicate.

There's no doubt the painting of the hair is very delicate.

Very delicate touch of blue showing the blood beneath the skin -

it's very, very close to Van Dyck himself.

The whole thing? Just the face?

Oh, just the face.

No, this, this does have the characteristics of the studio.

But that's exactly what you'd expect,

you wouldn't expect anything different in a picture of this date, 39-40.

But the face itself is where you'd expect to see

the hand of the master himself.

But I really would like to sit down and place it in the context

of other late pictures by Van Dyck, to look further into the question,

but I think it has a sporting chance of being by Van Dyck himself.

For the sake of my own clarity,

as you know, the auction houses have this term "attributed to",

meaning they think it might be by a particular artist.

Do you think we could describe this picture now,

would you be comfortable with us describing this picture now as attributed to Van Dyck?

Yes, I think that's reasonable.

I think that's a reasonable description because it comes from the studio,

it is very close to the artist himself,

and I think further research will clarify

whether or not it's by Van Dyck.

Do you like it?

Oh, I do, I do, I like it very much indeed.

It would hang happily on the walls of the Ashmolean Museum.

When Philip chooses to donate it.

THEY LAUGH

It's one of the great dreams of the art world to discover

a masterpiece hidden for centuries.

After that first leap of imagination,

almost 1,000 hours of restoration and some sleepless nights,

we've revealed not only a beautiful painting,

but one that came from Van Dyck's studio,

perhaps from the brush of the Master himself.

Well, I think that went well, and do you know why I'm so pleased?

You never believed us all along, did you?

Well, she has had the makeover to end all makeovers.

The only thing is, though,

you both believe that the face is by Van Dyck,

and he's slightly hedged his bets there, so is that disappointing?

No, what we've done today I think is a huge advance.

We've got one of the leading national experts on Van Dyck

to say that this is attributed to the man.

You can't expect immediate responses from people like that

when they're suddenly presented with the evidence,

and in so dramatic a form as it emerged today.

As far as I'm concerned, this is proper art historical progress,

and what's more, now that we've got this far

we have a very exciting place for it to hang.

Here on Whitehall stands the 17th-century Banqueting House,

once part of the great Palace of Whitehall.

It was Henrietta Maria's home, and also where her husband,

Charles I, was executed in 1649.

Philip has agreed that the painting will be displayed here,

where experts and the public can judge it for themselves.

What do you think of this?

Henrietta Maria coming to hang in the palace

where she spent so much time as a queen.

It's rather like she's come home.

And, of course, it's also in great company.

I mean, have you seen that ceiling up there by Rubens?

One of the great masterpieces of England, here where she's hanging.

And, of course, Van Dyck was his greatest pupil, so what better place?

And also, the public can see his painting here.

I mean, who'd have thought it when you first set eyes on it all those months ago?

And don't think there aren't many other pictures out there,

waiting to be found.

If you have a painting that deserves investigation,

contact us at [email protected]

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