Chagall Fake or Fortune?

£18,500,000...

The art world - where paintings change hands for fortunes.

Selling at 95 million.

But for every known masterpiece, there may be another waiting to be discovered.

-Hello.

-Fiona. Nice to meet you. Oh, my word!

They're known as sleepers. International art dealer

Philip Mould hunts them down.

In the past we looked AT pictures. Now, almost, you can look THROUGH them.

Using cutting-edge science and investigative research, we've teamed

up to find long-lost works by the great masters.

Wow!

The problem is, not every painting is quite what it seems.

-When these paintings were thought to be genuine, how much were they worth?

-Millions.

It's a journey that can end in joy...

Isn't that great!

..or bitter disappointment.

I can't get my head round it, I really can't.

In this episode,

we meet a family from Leeds who seized the chance to invest

in a painting that could be by a master of modern art - Marc Chagall.

What did you pay for it?

I paid about £100,000 for it.

Gosh.

But it comes with a warning. It's never been officially

accepted as a genuine work.

Our quest to prove that it's authentic plunges us into Chagall's Russian past

and the most shadowy corners of the art market.

How many fakes would you say are out there in the market?

90%. Actually, I think it's more than that.

Is this picture the bargain of a lifetime...

If it's by Chagall, well, that could turn out to be rather cheap.

..or a very expensive gamble on the notorious Russian art market?

-Feeling confident?

-We've come this far. We're going to go to the bitter end.

In the sleepy village of Tudeley in Kent,

there is a little church with rather a special feature.

-Hi there.

-Hi.

A complete set of stained glass windows

designed by one of the 20th century's greatest artists, Marc Chagall.

-Wow.

-It's like an ocean of colours, isn't it?

Picasso famously says that when Matisse dies, Chagall will be

the only one left who truly understands colour

and I have to say, it's quite extraordinary to encounter

such an explosion of modern design in a country Kent church.

These memorial windows were commissioned by a local family

but Chagall's works, from stained glass and murals

to oil paintings and watercolours, are more usually found

in the world's great opera houses, cathedrals and art galleries.

A pioneer of modern art, Chagall spent a large part of his life in France.

His pictures have a childlike dream quality and a playful

sense of the surreal, like this airborne depiction of his beloved wife Bella.

His work is almost always inspired by memories of his Jewish upbringing

in Russia, where he was born in 1887.

So, a Russian Jew creating a window in an Anglican church

in the Garden of England. It's incredible...contrast, isn't it?

And actually, I've read about this window,

though I've never seen it before, and it was commissioned because

the daughter of a very wealthy local family, she died age 21 -

tragically, she drowned - and that's her.

See that floating in a swell of blue there?

And her mother grieving up on the left.

And then she is climbing up the ladder to Christ,

heavenwards, presumably, and that's the story there.

I mean, despite its modernity, it's a genuinely affecting image, isn't it?

He was a really visionary artist.

Chagall's colourful, emotional works are highly prized in the art market

and we've received an intriguing e-mail from an English family in Leeds.

-Have a look at this.

-Hang on.

"Hi, I believe I have a Chagall in my possession.

"From my research, it is known as

"the Nude, 1909-1910, private collection, Moscow.

"Please see attached picture of the painting." Which is that, I presume, is it?

"Would your programme be interested in pursuing the authentication of this work by a popular artist?

"Kind regards, Frazer Lang."

I mean, as usual it's very difficult to tell just from a photograph

but it's sort of got the appearance of a Chagall.

These lovely blues as well - look.

And there'd be a huge amount to play for.

I mean, last year, I think, a Chagall made 13 million at auction

in New York. If we could get this through, that would be thrilling.

That WOULD be something.

We're keen to find out more about the possible Chagall picture

so Philip and I have travelled to the suburbs of Leeds to meet

property developer Martin Lang, his wife, Jackie, and son, Frazer.

-Hi, there.

-Hello, there.

-Pleased to meet you.

-We've come to see your Chagall.

Please come in.

Could they really have a major piece of modern art

hanging in their hallway?

I saw a documentary on Chagall,

and I realised we've got one of those hanging on the wall.

I looked in Dad's paperwork

and I realised we haven't got a provenance on it,

so I thought, "I'll phone Fake Or Fortune up. I'm sure they can help out!"

Well, at first glance from where I'm standing, it looks like a Chagall, doesn't it?

And you can't miss the boldness of that signature, can you - Chagall!

And there's all sorts of symbolism going on in there with

the faces on the left and the candelabra.

Jackie, what do you make of it?

Your eyes go straight to the picture and you see this lady

but then as you look deeper into it, there's lots going on.

It's almost like a mystery.

And the way it all floats around in that dreamlike,

discombobulated way. I mean, that's Chagall, and the colours as well.

I mean, those very strident, quite almost shocking colours.

The picture is one of several the family bought in the early '90s

when they were putting the finishing touches on the decoration of their new home.

Martin was interested in art that had begun to

emerge from Russia after the fall of Communism

and his interior designer knew how to get hold of it.

We had an interior designer and she had a daughter, Debbie Hatchwell,

a fine art consultant.

And Debbie led us into Russian art.

She explained to me what was happening with perestroika,

that there was an opportunity to get hold of new art coming to the west from Russia

that basically has never been on the market before - never been shown before.

-Under the Communist regime.

-That's right.

It was all pent up. All hidden away.

I got a phone call from Debbie and she said, "Martin,

"would you be interested in a Chagall?"

That knocked me back a bit.

As it would!

Yeah, very much. And I said to her, I said, "Bring it along,

"let's have a look at it," and I looked at it and I thought, wow!

She said don't get too excited - it hasn't got a provenance at this stage that has been verified.

Although Debbie Hatchwell had made clear that there was no proof that it was authentic,

it did have a compelling piece of evidence in its favour.

There's a book by a gentlemen called Kamensky,

who wrote about this, who was a friend of Chagall.

THAT Chagall painting was in this book by Kamensky?

Yes, and also the interesting thing to see is that

if you look very closely you'll notice there's a crease.

That's in the painting and if you look at the book by Kamensky,

the same crease is in that book.

Actually, from time to time, I find damage on an old picture

can be rather reassuring.

What did you pay for it?

I paid about £100,000 for it.

-Gosh.

-That is a lot, if it's a fake.

I mean, it's worth a fraction of that.

But, of course, if it's by Chagall, well, that could turn out to

be rather cheap cos it might be worth three, four, five times that.

And if it's fake, how will you feel about it?

We take it...we take it...we take it as it is.

But hang on - it's a big loss!

-I'll be singing on the streets of London!

-Yes.

No, I think...we're prepared to take that risk.

You take a risk in life on everything you do.

After meeting the Lang family, Philip and I head back to London on

the train. It's a chance to compare notes on what we've seen and heard.

So what do you think?

I...you know, I really like Martin and I really like the family

and I want to make it work for them

but there's a few issues with this picture.

I mean, I'm not quite sure about the age of the picture, I'm not

a Chagall specialist, but it needs to be, what, 100 years or more old.

If I spent that kind of money on a painting with next to no provenance,

it would keep me awake at night, but then, you know, I love his style!

Risk taker. Seize the day.

But then, you know, the Russian art market is...well, it's not too much of an exaggeration

to say it is awash with fakes - and there was a big London

auction house not very long ago got sued for £2 million, I think it was,

because they sold a Russian painting that turned out to be a fake.

If we're going to progress this picture, we've got to find out as much as we can about its history.

We need to get our head of research on the case, Dr Bendor Grosvenor.

First port of call - the Courtauld Institute Library, a vast collection

of art-related documents, including many books on Marc Chagall.

I've got here a copy of the book that Martin said his picture is in,

and it's published in 1989, so it's three years before he bought it.

It's called Chagall - The Russian Years, and it's by a chap called

Aleksandr Kamensky, who's a pretty eminent Soviet art critic and art historian.

In fact, there's rather a nice little photo here of Chagall

with Kamensky and apparently they were quite close - so on the surface

it would seem that this Kamensky book is a very good authority.

And here on page 28 is Martin's picture.

And we can even see the crease that is still visible in Martin's painting today.

So it's definitely one and the same thing.

"Nude, 1909-10, private collection, Moscow."

So that would appear to be pretty conclusive.

So it would be really nice to know how this picture

got into Kamensky's very respected book.

Someone must have given him a photograph, or perhaps he even saw it.

And Kamensky was convinced we were dealing with a genuine Chagall.

Chagall's Russian years spanned some of the most dramatic

events of the early 20th century,

from the First World War to the Russian Revolution.

He learned his craft in his hometown of Vitebsk in Russia, depicted

here with the figure of a beggar from Jewish folklore floating above

the rooftops, but I'm intrigued by the years he spent in Paris

between 1910 and 1914, when he created a rather familiar-looking picture.

I've also got an exhibition catalogue of Chagall's works

from an exhibition in Germany in 1921 in Potsdam

and that includes this very similar watercolour of a reclining nude.

Painted in 1911, its stark lines and geometric patterns reveal the

influence of the Cubist artists that Chagall was rubbing shoulders with.

But how does it relate to Martin's picture?

The one we're dealing with here in the exhibition in Germany is totally genuine.

It's got a provenance that goes all the way back.

We can be certain about this being by Chagall.

So is Martin's picture a preparatory study, is it a second version,

did Chagall do two versions of the same subject?

Or is it something that came after the event?

Is it a copy of this genuine work?

Bendor's been busy, and we're all meeting up in Philip's gallery.

Martin has been digging up all the paperwork relating to his painting,

and he's got one rather interesting letter - it's from Debbie Hatchwell,

who was the fine art agent who brokered the sale of the painting

in the first place - and I quite like the look of this paragraph here.

"This painting has been in the hands of a private collector

"for the last 20 years.

"Before this, it was owned by a lady dancer called Kavarska..." Kavarska!

"..who was a very good friend of Chagall's first wife in Russia."

Chagall's first wife was called Bella Rosenfeld - I've got

rather a nice photograph of him painting her here. They were married

in 1915 and she came from Vitebsk, which was Chagall's home town.

This Kavarska sounds interesting, though,

because if that is true, she was the first owner

of the painting and that's a really good lead in terms of provenance.

Kavarska gets another mention in this letter a bit further on here.

"This painting was given to Kavarska before the Revolution

"and before Chagall emigrated to the West."

That's actually very helpful, isn't it?

Because we know the painting is purported to have been

done 1909-1910 and this gives us a provenance to back it up.

It was owned prior to 1917, the date of the Revolution.

We've been in touch with this Debbie Hatchwell

and she has said that the painting originally

came from a Russian art dealer, a guy called Alexander Shlepyanov,

who was working in London for an auction house called Phillips.

Ah, Phillips, I remember it well. Together with the two main

auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, they were major

players until they were taken over by Bonhams in 2001.

The only auctioneers, I gather, who actually managed to hold

a sale within Buckingham Palace.

But this is reassuring, because that auction house had status.

Someone who worked for them thus had it as well

and it lends a bit more credence to the attribution.

Well, let's take stock for a minute. The painting is owned my Martin Lang at present.

He bought it from the art consultant Debbie Hatchwell.

SHE got the painting from this Russian Alexander Shlepyanov,

who worked for Phillips at the time.

He obtained the painting from a private collector,

we don't know who, in Moscow.

Before that, we think it was owned by this Russian dancer, Kavarska,

and presumably before that, if all this is true,

it was in the hands of Chagall himself.

If we can make all this add up, then we can take the picture to

the only people who can authenticate a Chagall painting - the Chagall Committee,

which is run in Paris by the artist's two granddaughters.

But as we know, those academic committees are no pushover.

And we've also got this other problem with this picture.

It comes from a dark period in Russian history.

Anything so associated with the Russian art world,

I have to say, does come with a health warning.

But what I want to do more than anything else is have a good look at those pigments,

work out what the paint is.

What I'd like to do is dig a bit more into the painting's history and see what I can find there.

The hunt for evidence starts in the former Russian Republic of Belarus,

where Chagall was born and raised at the turn of the 20th century.

I've brought Martin here in search of information about his picture

and how it might fit into the story of the artist's life.

One of the most important leads we can follow up lies in the very

title of Martin's painting -

Nude, 1909-10.

That very specific set of dates places the picture at a key moment

in Chagall's life, when he left art school in St Petersburg

and returned to his hometown of Vitebsk.

We've joined up with local journalist Ilya Kuzniatsou.

He's brought us to the outskirts of town

for a glimpse of the world Chagall grew up in.

So, we've stopped here on the outskirts of Vitebsk

because I wanted to show you the houses.

Um, this is the shape of houses they would have in Vitebsk in the end of 19th century.

Back then it was mainly a Jewish town.

More than half of the people were Jewish.

And they were traders.

Yes, because Chagall's father was in the herring trade, wasn't he?

-Right.

-He was a labourer.

-Yes.

And Chagall talked about his father coming home with his clothes

glistening with herring brine, which is quite an image.

And then his mother ran a grocery shop.

-Right.

-I mean, this, I imagine, is a bit more picturesque

than the poor side of town that Chagall lived in

with all the houses crowded together,

everyone living on top of each other.

In fact he described his paintings...he said,

every painting is the spirit and reflection of Vitebsk.

The thriving Jewish community

Chagall depicted in I And The Village

was almost was almost completely destroyed in the Second World War.

But you can easily picture the mournful fiddlers

and toiling peasants he drew inspiration from

and immortalised in works such as The Green Donkey.

Could Martin's picture be another of Chagall's scenes of Vitebsk?

If you look at the houses and the roofs...

Now, look at this place in particular,

and then look at his picture here. Let's turn it upside down.

The roofs, there. And the shapes of those roofs.

-You get a real sense of that, don't you? What d'you think?

-Very much.

I do as well. It's... The colours stand out as well.

You look at the colours as we walk past these properties.

-These blues.

-They're vibrant. Just vibrant colours.

And these churches here are very much typical of the area.

Back then in Vitebsk, there was, I think, 30 Orthodox churches,

and 60 synagogues.

So this looks like one of the Orthodox churches,

maybe Uspensky Cathedral.

Because they have these kind of shapes in the domes and architecture.

And these are what Chagall talks about

when he was in his attic room that he shared with his brother

-and he would look out of the window...

-Yes, yes.

..and he would see the stars and the roofs and the fences and the beams and the courtyards,

and he would wonder what was going on in the world within.

Does this make a bit more sense to you?

-It does.

-Seeing it here in situ?

-Oh, very much.

Before I came here, I wouldn't have got the picture in my mind

with how he lived his life.

But since I came here, I've looked around,

I've seen the properties, I've seen the people themselves,

everything's coming together.

Martin, I've brought along the letter that you were given

when you bought this painting, which talks about the provenance of it.

And it mentions in particular that it was owned by a lady dancer called Kavarska...

-That's right.

-..who was a good friend of Chagall's first wife.

Ilya, you've been doing a bit of work into it, into Kavarska.

What have you found out?

In this spelling, this doesn't seem right.

It could be slightly different.

It could be misspelt.

Because if it was "Kovarskaya", then it sounds more or less...

-"Kovarskaya."

-Kovarskaya. It sounds more or less correct.

-So we need to cast our net a bit wider, Martin.

-I think so.

-Because in Belarus, it's clearly not a name that belongs here.

-Yes.

At the end of our day in Vitebsk, Martin and I head for a cafe to take stock.

I've been researching Chagall's life

and I've got a theory about the possible identity of the mysterious nude.

I've been having a little think about who this woman could be,

if this is by Chagall.

Now, 1909-1910, when Chagall was here in Vitebsk,

he had girlfriend called Thea Brachmann.

Her house was full of congeniality and music and laughter.

Now, he painted her nude a number of times.

I guess, well, it's an artistic tradition but also

if you're a young man and you can get away with it, I'm sure you would!

-Yes!

-So you've got Chagall, Red Nude, 1909.

And this is Thea Brachmann here and she's...

she's the colour of borscht, isn't she?

A nice bit of beetroot soup!

And she's always described, Thea Brachmann, as broad-shouldered and big-boned.

She is there.

She is there. Now it's possible that this could be her.

Since the dates of Martin's picture coincide with Chagall's relationship

with Thea Brachmann - could this be a lost portrait of her?

While Fiona and Martin spend more time exploring Vitebsk,

his son Frazer and I are on our way to the University College, London,

to meet Dr Libby Sheldon, an art historian

who specialises in the forensic analysis of fine art.

She's going to examine our possible Chagall to see how it was created.

-Hi. This is Frazer.

-Hello.

Ah, and here is the picture.

OK, Libby, so, what do you make of it?

It seems to me fairly confident and the colours are rather beautiful,

and rather well harmonised.

Whoever put this together has made changes of mind

about what colour to use.

Looking at it more closely under the microscope,

I can see that there are quite a lot of differences in texture,

and that's quite a good thing.

Around the left-hand edge there's a red, bright red underneath

-one of the greens, so...entirely covered...

-That's fascinating.

..so that that's not really the sort of thing you might expect of a copyist or a pasticher.

OK. So nothing stands out that could be an obvious problem.

No, no, and there's a confidence about it that's rather charming.

Um, so if it is wrong, then it's a very clever, um...later pastiche.

Libby's initial impressions are encouraging

but I'm keen to know more about the medium - the paint itself.

It looks like gouache, a kind of watercolour thickened with

gum arabic that Chagall frequently used - but is it?

What is this - what is it made from?

My impression of it is that it's a gouache, which is water soluble.

OK, so it might be a watercolour but not watercolour that we're

used to - the transparent look - but a more pasty version of it.

Exactly.

On the surface, Martin's picture looks to have been painted

with the same materials Chagall used in other works of this period

but Libby wants to test a sample to check that it's old enough to

have been done between 1909 and 1910.

OK, you've got a lot of bottles there.

What's the first test you're going to do?

The first test we could do is for acrylic,

because that's critical in terms of date.

And if it is an acrylic paint?

Then that would be wrong, because it would be later,

because such acrylic paints were only manufactured after the Second World War.

-I see.

-So it would be a fake.

-Yes.

If acrylic paint IS present, it will dissolve when rubbed

with a solvent called xylene - and we'll see paint on the swab.

OK, Frazer, so we really don't want this to dissolve.

Right, so I'll just do a test on the very edge

at this damaged corner.

And now I'm just rolling it very gently on the edge of the painting

so that I can see whether the paint is being taken up by this solvent.

And it isn't.

And I don't know if you can see that there's no pigment on there.

It's having no effect at the moment.

Yeah. I mean, we're looking anxiously at your swab.

It's still white, it hasn't turned blue - which is presumably

what would happen if it was acrylic.

Er, yes.

The absence of acrylic is a relief. Next, a swab with saliva.

It's an art-world trick to confirm the presence of watercolour

without dissolving and spreading the paint, but it also reveals

tiny particles of blue pigment that Libby is concerned about.

Now, the problem is that the blue

looks a very stainy sort of blue.

Sorry - stainy blue?

It doesn't have individual particles,

so it's either Prussian Blue, which would be fine for this period,

or it's Phthalocyanine Blue, which is a new blue that came in in the 1930s.

Which we so don't want it to be.

No, so we'd have to do further tests on that to find out what it was.

So far, so good. I mean, we've established that it's painted

in gouache, we've established that it's painted

in layers, so whoever the artist is, is thinking carefully how to do it.

But there are pigments which if they prove to be wrong,

if they prove to be later than they should be,

it would shoot the Chagall attribution out of the sky.

Back in Belarus, Martin and I have arrived in the capital,

Minsk, for our return flight, but journalist Ilya has turned up

an old article he felt he had to share with us before we leave.

I was doing my research and the first thing that popped out,

a story in 2006. There's an English version of it.

-You might be interested.

-Pravda, the old Soviet news agency, there's a name to conjure with.

"Marc Chagall's painting auctioned for 650,000 is a fake."

So, this is back in 2005.

"A scandal broke out in the capital of Belarus following the sale

"of a previously unknown painting by Marc Chagall at auction in Minsk.

"The painting was purchased for 650,000 by an individual

"who remained anonymous.

"The painting had been kept in Russia for the last 80 years."

How long has your painting been kept in Russia for?

I would say the same. 80 years.

About 80 years. "The auction house representatives are reluctant to give away

"any details as to the painting's previous owner.

"They just say the painting is an heirloom.

"They claim the authenticity of the painting was verified by a private expert.

"It was allegedly painted by Marc Chagall

"while he was in the town of Vitebsk, sometime during 1915 and 1920.

"Although Marc Chagall's paintings are not forged as frequently

"as other famous Russian artists, art crooks are no stranger to his works."

It's a worry, isn't it, when you see that?

Only for the faint-hearted.

I like your style!

Nothing's going to deter you, is it?

No.

We've come this far, we're going to go to the bitter end.

When you're in Vitebsk, it's easy to get caught up

in the romance of Marc Chagall's life story.

The atmosphere of the town, the streets in which he lived,

and just begin perhaps to imagine the story of Martin's painting.

I know as well as anybody that Chagalls are faked many times over,

but that report is a reality check.

It certainly gives you pause for thought.

I mean, hopefully, that's where the similarities end.

Back in Philip's gallery, we all meet up to take stock.

Looking at Martin's picture in Vitebsk, it was very interesting,

it all began to make a lot more sense, but we drew a complete

blank with the dancer, Kavarska, didn't get anywhere with her.

Well, I've been having a look at the other end of the evidence trail,

trying to find out more about this Russian art dealer

who's supposed to have had Martin's painting before he bought it, Alexander Shlepyanov.

Now, I've got some video footage of him here which was shot quite recently in April 2012.

It's a programme about Russian expatriates living in London, called Moscow On Thames.

Anyway, here he is talking about his passion for Russian art

and collecting Russian art.

Schlepyanov still lives in London, but he can't talk to us

about Martin's picture because he's been rather unwell

but he does remember something about a dancer called Kovarskaya.

That's interesting, because Kavarska doesn't appear to be

a genuine name in Belarus according to our researcher,

but Kovarskaya is a genuine Russian name, he thought.

So did you get anywhere with trying to find out

-if anyone actually has that name?

-We have a researcher in Russia who's looking into both

variants of Kovarskaya and Kavarska as the name of a dancer,

and so far we've got nothing.

-So you've drawn a blank?

-Drawn a blank.

Hmm, I wonder if that's a bit ominous.

Because when I was in Belarus I came across this article in Pravda

and that was a very expensive fake and its provenance was

scarily similar to that of Martin's painting.

I agree with you but let's not forget the scientific tests

have not disproved it yet, in fact there's still hope

that they could prove positive.

But we are definitely moving into darker, less charted waters,

and there are experts out there who I think might be able to help us.

While Martin's picture awaits further tests,

I've arranged to meet a London art dealer

who specialises in the Russian market, James Butterwick.

I first went to the Soviet Union in 1985.

He was buying art from Russia at the time Martin's picture

came on the market, but after 30 years in the business

he's learned to be exceedingly cautious.

When it comes to Russian modern art, or avant-garde art, as it's sometimes called,

how many fakes are there out in the market compared to genuine works of art, would you say?

In a week's work, I will be sent quite a lot of pictures

for my expert opinion

and I would say that during a month,

I will be sent maybe 30-35, you know, photographs, of which,

34.5 are worthless.

After the fall of Communism, art from Russia flooded onto

the market, with collectors snapping up works by famous

names like Chagall and artists previously unknown in the West.

As demand grew and prices rose,

forgers infiltrated the market on an unprecedented scale.

How come there are so many out there and so many people are taken in?

They are convinced that they can buy a picture for half a million pounds

and then sell it tomorrow for 20. They can't.

It just doesn't happen, so that's number one - greed.

Secondly, people want to believe it's genuine, and they

sort of convince themselves in every way, shape or form that it is genuine, without taking

a huge step back and analysing why it's genuine.

We're looking at a painting that purports to be by Chagall.

And it comes with some kind of provenance. What would sound

alarm bells for you?

First of all, if it had been purported to have been

a gift from Chagall to somebody, for example, in Vitebsk.

It's awfully difficult to prove that.

What if the painting had appeared in a book by a Russian art historian?

This is an extremely moot point,

because the incidences of works by Russian painters appearing

in books that are purported to be genuine are, regrettably, legion.

-And these works then turn out to be fake?

-Oh, yes.

They were faked before they were even put in the book, it's

a really moot point, it's a big, big problem.

What's going on there? Is that because the art historians

don't know, are they complicit in some way?

They are complicit sometimes, on other occasions I think

they're just simply extremely bad at their jobs.

How naive would you have been, then, to buy a Russian work of art,

in the early 1990s?

A lot of people looked upon Russia and Russia's culture,

slightly through rose-tinted spectacles,

because it was glasnost, it was perestroika, it was a time

of enormous optimism, so I don't think it's necessarily that naive.

From the way James describes the quantity of fakes out

there in the market, and the difficulties of buying a genuine

work, it's clear that if you're even thinking of buying a Russian

art work without its full provenance, you might as well just plunge

your hand into a tank of piranhas - it's that difficult and it's that risky.

And even now there's an investigation going on,

that stretches from Germany to Israel, where there is faking

going on on an industrial scale of modern Russian artists.

James doesn't know about Martin's painting in particular,

and we've still got a lot of work to do on it

and tests to come back, but it does give you a bit of a sinking feeling.

Those words of warning make our quest

for evidence in support of Martin's painting more urgent than ever.

So Bendor is researching the important art collector who

helped to arrange the sale.

I've been trying to find out a little bit more

about Alexander Shlepyanov.

And I've got an article here written in 1989.

He was quite a famous scriptwriter

and film-maker in the Soviet Union and then came to live in London,

and he brought with him his quite important collection of Russian art,

and in fact he lent some pictures to the first significant exhibition of

Russian art held in London in 1989 at the Barbican. There's one here

by an artist called Bogomazov, and the picture is listed as

Portrait Of The Artist's Wife from the collection of AI Shlepyanov.

Anyway, I think the most significant thing is that he says in this

article that his passion now, as before, is Russian art of the 1910s

and 1920s, so this is exactly the period

that Martin's painting is supposed to have been painted.

And then he goes on to say, "There are still many fine pieces to

"be had in Britain." So this sounds like it's his area of expertise,

and I think we need to get in touch with him to find out what else

he can tell us about Martin's painting, in particular

the name of the private collector who owned it before it came to England.

I'm also getting in touch with our Russian researcher,

Elena, to see if she's found any references to a dancer called

Kavarska or Kovarskaya.

'Zdravstvujte...'

Elena? Hello, it's Bendor in London.

'Oh, hi, how are you?'

I'm all right, thank you for all your help.

I wonder if you had any news about our mysterious dancer?

-Thank you so much, Elena.

-'Cheery.'

-Cheerio, bye.

-'Take care, bye.'

I think that's a "nyet" on the dancer, isn't it?

While Bendor continues his research,

I've arrived in America on business,

and whilst here I've managed to secure a meeting with one of

the art world's most infamous characters, a forger called Tony Tetro.

A highly skilled painter in his own right,

he made a fast buck in the '70s and '80s by faking Rembrandts, Miros

and Dalis to order, until he was jailed in the early '90s.

I've come to seek his unique perspective on the work

of an artist he faked scores of times in every medium - Chagall.

Tony, good to meet you. Great cars.

You have impeccable taste!

You have history with Chagall, and you were at one point in

the courts with Chagall,

and you faked his work, or you created works...

I faked his work. That was over 22 years ago.

1989 - longer - I'm losing track myself.

So, you then had to get into the mind of Chagall...

To do it properly, yes.

How do you get the technique right to begin with?

How do you go about painting a Chagall?

People who know Chagall, even art dealers, they can see

there's something wrong when the colours aren't just right. I did a Chagall one time, a gouache,

and the red was wrong, and a guy picked up on it, an art dealer

not an expert, and he said, "That red is wrong," and he was right,

and from that point on, I made sure my colours were correct, they have to be correct.

So, how many works by Chagall that actually you did are out there

in museums and collections?

Hundreds, and that's including lithographs and etchings, of course.

So your hand is on all of these works

and where do you think they are now - museums...?

I have idea and I don't want to know.

Of the hundreds of fake Chagall's

that Tony produced in Los Angeles, few have ever been found.

So, I have to ask a pressing question about Martin's picture.

So this purports, and may indeed well be,

a Chagall of 1909-1910.

I never did anything in 1910, that old.

Well, that's a relief.

You know, I thought maybe I did it when they were telling me about this.

One of my questions to you was...

No, I didn't!

HE LAUGHS

You can anticipate my question, can't you?

Tell me your thoughts about this.

It lacks some Chagall-ness, and the perimeter lines around the body seem to be

too thick, he would have done them thinner and more sporadic - see they're all connected,

it's one flow. He would have done shorter, jerky movements

The candelabra is nice, this is actually a nice piece.

He developed his colour sense as time went by.

In 1910, he didn't really have it. The colours he put together,

the greens with purples and blues and everything...

Here, he hasn't developed it yet, so this could be on par.

'When Tony was faking Chagall's work,

'he spent hours practising one key element, the signature.

'Chagall would change the way he signed his name

'depending on the type of work he was up to,

'so what does Tony make of the signature on Martin's painting?'

It's a gouache, it's a gouache signature,

it's a different medium, so we'd have a different signature.

The 'A's do not look correct to me, the 'L' Chagall could have

done that way, too. I wouldn't be happy with those 'L's.

Chagall would sometimes do a capital 'A' rather than a letter 'A' or handwritten A.

And, because it's gouache, you can only get it right once?

If I were to do this, to do a Chagall gouache, I would sit for hours

and hours practising the signature and sometimes I would choke.

What we've just seen has been a real revelation. I mean, we're no nearer

knowing whether Martin's picture is real or fake, but what it has shown,

in a rather worrying way, is just how easy it is to fake a Chagall.

Tony makes it look like karaoke, he stands up there

gets into the zone, into the spirit of the artist.

Now, obviously, he's proficient, knows exactly how to paint and draw,

but it makes you think.

When Philip arrives home from America, we get together

and head to the Chemistry Department in University College, London.

It was really fascinating going to LA and meeting Tony Tetro,

but it was also worrying because this is a man who knows what a fake

looks like - he was after all doing them till the late 1980s.

And he definitely had his doubts about the picture.

Did he?

Well, I met a chap, James Butterwick, who's an art

dealer specialising in Russian art and he claims that 90%

of the work out there in the Russian art market is fake.

90%!

So there is a lot riding on these scientific tests, that's for sure.

We're meeting with Dr Tracey Chaplin. She's going

to analyse Martin's picture with a brilliantly incisive tool

that can pinpoint the exact pigments in a painting - a Raman laser microscope.

Martin and Fraser are joining us to witness the results.

When Libby looked at your picture, she homed in on that

incredibly useful colour, blue.

And she managed to establish that it was likely to be either

Prussian Blue, invented in 1704, or Phthalocyanine, which is a slightly

more problematic pigment because it was invented in the 1930s.

Now, if we think about what we know about the history

of your painting, you understand from the documentation you were given with your picture

that it was painted by Chagall,

probably in Vitebsk between 1909 and 1910, and then given to this

mysterious dancer, Kavarska, before the Russian revolution in 1917,

so if it is

Phthalocyanine Blue, invented in the 1930s, then that's very problematic.

Absolutely.

So that's what we're not hoping to find.

-Let's keep our fingers crossed, then.

-Let's find out.

Tracey, you're going to be doing the tests for us, thank you.

How does this work?

We shine a very low-powered laser light onto the surface of the

painting, and we look at the light that's scattered back, and that

scattering will tell us exactly what material is present in the painting.

Each pigment produces a unique spectrum of light,

a Raman spectrum, that can be plotted on a graph.

The blue pigments we're testing might look similar to the eye,

but their Raman spectra are strikingly different when displayed on a graph.

If it's Prussian Blue, we'll see a single sharp peak.

If it's Phthaolcyanine Blue, we'll see many smaller peaks.

So we definitely don't want the mountain.

Not really.

Shall we start?

This is it - a single test that might mean

the difference between £500,000 and nothing at all.

Now, what are we seeing there?

What we're seeing is a series of very sharp peaks

which are indicative...

..of Phthalocyanine Blue.

Ah.

So that means, doesn't it, that this can only have been

painted after Phthalocyanine Blue was invented, effectively, which is the 1930s.

1930s, this is paint from the 1930s.

So, Martin, I suspect that probably wasn't what you wanted to see.

Not at all, no.

How do you feel about that?

Well, obviously I feel a bit knocked back on that.

It wasn't what we were expecting or hoping for.

That paint could not have been put on in Vetebsk between 1909, 1910.

I'm in a turmoil at the moment. I keep thinking about Kamensky

and his book, and the date on that.

"Has he made a mistake?" I keep thinking.

Where is the journey leading us to?

What we do know is that Chagall is one of those target artists for fakers.

I met this guy Tony Tetro who specialises in creating,

in duping people with Chagalls, was doing it right up till the late '80s.

So we have entered a very murky area of the art world.

Back in Philip's gallery,

we're coming to terms with the results of our scientific tests.

I've had a more detailed breakdown of Tracy's pigment analysis

of Martin's painting, and I'm afraid it doesn't look very good.

Not only is the blue a modern pigment,

but the green is a modern pigment as well, so out of period

for the painting, and there's even dodgy pigments in the signature.

This is getting worse and worse.

We've hit the buffers on the actual materials used, and it

looks as though we've got nowhere to go on the provenance as well.

And neither Debbie Hatchwell nor Alexander Shlepyanov can recall

the name of the private collector from whom Martin bought the picture

so the provenance trail is finished.

What about this book, though?

Because we know that Martin's painting,

complete with crease, was in this book by the Soviet art critic

Alexander Kamensky, and Martin set enormous store by the fact

that his painting is reproduced in this book.

That was the key thing.

I feel bad ruling out all this evidence

but if you look in this later edition,

published in 2005...

So it's not here.

I'm afraid it's entirely disappeared from the book.

Which is deeply worrying.

I've never come across that before, in the edition of one but not the other.

And why would anyone do that, other than having doubts

about the painting? Would there be other reasons why you'd take it out?

I mean, Alexander Kamensky's dead so we can't ask him.

We're at the point now where it seems we've got very few avenues

to go down except there's the committee - let's see what they say.

The Chagall Committee.

The evidence against Martin's picture is stacking up. His last

hope is that a mistake has been made in the provenance

and Chagall actually painted it much later than we thought.

And the only people who might have some answers

are the Chagall Committee in Paris,

led by his two granddaughters, Meret and Bella Meyer.

They have asked us to submit the painting to them for examination

and, with Martin's permission, Nude, 1909-10 makes the journey to France.

But just days after it arrives, we receive a response

from the Committee, and it's more shocking than we had ever imagined.

It's vital that we speak to Martin immediately, but he's on holiday in

a remote corner of Canada, so we'll have to contact him on-line.

Martin, hi, this is Fiona

and Philip. I'm sorry to disturb you on holiday. We've had some news,

it's here in black and white from the Chagall Committee.

We've only just had a cursory look but we need to give you now

-the details cos there's some decisions we need to make.

-'OK.'

Yes, Martin, I've got the letter here from the Chagall Committee.

Having looked at your work, and they go into details about it, Nude, 1909-1910.

And they are declaring that your painting is fake. I'm really sorry.

'It's a shame, absolutely. That's a shock, actually.

'I wasn't expecting that.

'We've obviously been fooled same as everyone else but, you know,

'it's very, very sad.'

I'm really sorry, Martin. I mean, this is the conclusion they've

come to and they go into details in this letter which, of course,

we will share with you, but we've just had this in. I've literally just seen it.

The Committee state that Martin's picture is an imitation

of a genuine work done in 1911 called Reclining Nude.

Their detailed analysis argues how a forger could have copied many of its elements.

But this new information comes at a terrible price.

The letter contains some truly devastating news.

The Committee proposes to invoke an extraordinary measure under

French law.

Part of the reason why we wanted to get hold of you

so urgently is there's a bit of a bombshell at the end of the letter.

On the basis, they say, that your painting is

fake in their opinion, "The heirs of Marc Chagall

"request that it - your painting - be seized and then destroyed."

'Right, we should talk about that further, in due course.'

We weren't expecting that.

'No.'

Well, Martin, you've heard what they've said.

There are options out there.

We need to regroup, we all need to think about it,

and you particularly,

where we go from here.

God, I feel sick about that, actually.

I mean, poor Martin... I had no idea that that could happen,

did you?

I mean, you hear about it. It's one of those

things you know that it exists in the art world,

the power of certain individuals, particularly if you're contracted

to be able to destroy a picture. But the reality is it's so rare.

I've never known it personally, I don't know any colleagues

of mine who've encountered this. I mean, the response is so extreme!

You know, I keep thinking how Martin must be feeling.

He looked devastated.

Martin, whether it's fake or not,

has spent £100,000 on this picture, and they're in a sort of cavalier

way saying, '"We do not think it's right, we shall therefore

"destroy the picture that you've just spent so much money on."

I mean, what sort of system, what sort of justice is that?!

The outcome is particularly shocking as the Chagall Committee's terms and

conditions made no specific mention that the picture could be destroyed.

They have issued Martin with an ultimatum. Either

he agrees to the destruction or they fight him in the French courts.

We need some expert advice, so we're meeting Pierre Valentin,

a lawyer who specialises in art litigation.

Pierre, in my experience and that of colleagues I've spoken to,

this has not happened before, so what are the precedents?

There were a couple of recent instances involving Joan Miro.

On both occasions, these were two different owners,

the Miro Committee decided these works were fakes, and they proceeded

to have these works seized with a view to having them destroyed.

The owners, as you can imagine, were not amused and they sued,

but on those two occasions they lost.

But it's a complete catch 22, isn't it?

Because if you have a painting that you think might be by Chagall,

the way to get it authenticated, or not, is by submitting

it to the Chagall Committee, but then you run risk that they

might destroy it - it's just an impossible situation there, surely?

The problem, Fiona, is you don't really have a choice

because the market will look to the Chagall Committee. They'll tell you

if it's by Chagall or not, so if the Committee does not agree

that it's by Chagall, what you have is virtually worthless.

This power of destruction seems absolutely wrong on every level!

I mean, they will say, of course, that they have a duty to protect

to make sure that as few fakes circulate in the market as possible.

Assuming the Committee are right and

Martin's painting is a fake, what are his chances of getting it back?

Almost none. In terms of the Chagall Committee,

they will go ahead and destroy the painting,

they have the right to do that, and not to do it would set a precedent

which from their perspective would be very dangerous,

so I fully expect that they will destroy it.

And I think he would be losing his time, wasting his time, going to the French courts.

I hardly dare ask, but how would they destroy Martin's painting?

I think they would probably burn it.

Goodness me.

When Martin gets back from his holiday, we meet up with him and his son, Fraser,

to discuss Pierre Valentin's advice, and their options.

Martin, I was just wondering what's

happened in the interim between us having that terrible conversation with you on Skype and giving you

the awful news about your painting. What are your feelings now?

We've written to the Committee asking them

if they would please allow us to keep the painting.

We don't even mind if they mark the back of the painting that

it's been turned down by the Committee.

But what we do want, you know, is to keep it as a memento.

So, worst case scenario, the painting is destroyed,

you've got nothing left, what next?

I don't particularly want to bear grudges against committees

or individuals, that's not my way of doing things.

I wish to remain positive. I wish to look upon this as an experience.

I mean, Fraser, what are your feelings towards it now,

as a piece of art?

I grew up with the painting on the wall.

I might not have realised who it was at the time but...

Do you still like it?

Oh, yeah, I like it. Now, to me, it has a better story.

You are remarkably sanguine about a hundred-grand loss...

Yes, but what would it have been if it had been a success?

You've got to weigh up. In life, you can't be negative all the time.

It doesn't pay. Life is too short to be destructive. You want

to be constructive, you want to say, "We've lost that,

"let's move on to something else."

The Chagall Committee won't decide

on Martin's appeal until their next meeting, so Martin

has a tense wait ahead of him... but it's time for us to say goodbye.

This hasn't turned out how any of us would have wanted,

but I hope it hasn't put you off paintings for life.

No, not at all. I think we have to be more careful in future!

So, you'll still buy a picture again?

Oh, yes, of course.

I salute your positive attitude!

It's been so lovely getting to know you and working with you.

-Thank you.

-All the very best.

Just before we are due to hear the final verdict from the Chagall Committee,

we receive a letter from Debbie Hatchwell and Alexander Shlepyanov,

who arranged the sale of the painting to Martin in 1992.

They reaffirmed that the painting was sold in good faith

and in the belief that it was genuine,

and that Martin understood that the price paid was low, reflecting

the fact that it had not been verified by the Chagall Committee.

They say they spoke to Alexander Kamensky about its appearance

in his book and they name two other Russian art dealers who helped

to source the painting - information we passed on to the Committee.

After examining this new information,

and Martin's appeal for the return of the work, the Chagall Committee

have reiterated their verdict that the picture is a fake and should be destroyed.

They also reveal that a member of the Chagall family expressed

extremely serious doubts about the painting to

Alexander Kamensky as soon as his book was published,

which led to it being removed from subsequent editions.

Martin has chosen not to contest the case in the courts

but has launched a last-ditch appeal and asked for a full refund

if it should ever be proven that the picture is in fact genuine.

He awaits the committee's answer in two days from now.

This has been the most extreme outcome in four years

of our Fake Or Fortune investigations.

Martin and his family have encountered the international

art world at its most ruthless.