Freud 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 still waiting to be discovered.'

-That's it!

-Well, that's it, isn't it?

That is it! That is our painting.

International art dealer Philip Mould and I have teamed up

to hunt for lost works by great artists.

We use old-fashioned detective work and state-of-the-art science

to get to the truth.

Science can enable us to see beyond the human eye.

-Da-na!

-Oh, wow!

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

You successfully faked Lowrys,

-even while you were at school, didn't you?

-Yes.

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

-Oh-h! Isn't that great?

-That's wonderful.

'..or bitter disappointment.'

I can't cope with this roller coaster.

What a nightmare.

In this episode, we take on

one of the 20th century's most important painters.

Lot number 31, the Lucian Freud.

Madam, you have it at 50 million.

Sold.

Famed for his distinctive nudes,

Lucian Freud was the most valuable living artist

until his death in 2011.

Could we have discovered a lost work?

One of the first portraits Freud ever painted.

It's a very mature-looking painting.

It's got power and presence.

The market love him at the moment.

'But we're facing almost impossible odds,

'because the artist himself denied ever painting it.'

-Other experts believe that it is a Freud.

-Even if Freud himself...

-A lot of experts...

-..says it's not by him?

-Exactly.

'When we're trying to prove an artist wrong, we need hard facts.'

It's possible that we could have, embedded in this picture,

a piece of DNA, perhaps.

'This is our most incredible challenge yet...'

-Have I got it?

-I'm not joking.

-That's extraordinary!

'..disputing the word of Lucian Freud himself.'

We've not taken on a task like this before.

There's no doubt that Lucian Freud

was one of the most extraordinary characters of British art.

I never think about technique in anything, I think it's...

It holds you up.

You have to take paint on trust.

Born in Germany in 1922,

he was softly spoken, but with an iron will.

As his fame as an artist grew, he gained a reputation as a gambler,

a lothario, the magnetic personality

at the centre of controversy and feuds.

Yet he moved effortlessly between low and high society -

he even painted the Queen.

But it was his work that obsessed him.

Each painting could take thousands of hours,

creating intensely observed portraits, sometimes beautiful,

sometimes disturbing.

At his death in 2011, he left an estate worth almost £100 million.

Freud is one of the most important figures in modern art

and we've been contacted by a man

who believes he has one of the first portraits he ever painted.

So we're going to go and see a man called John Turner,

who said he's got a work by Lucian Freud.

-Does he?

-And the art market absolutely love him.

But from everything I've heard about Freud in the past...

..he's quite a tricky character,

so I think we might have our work cut out. Oh, look, here we are.

And there's John.

John Turner has had a successful career in retail design

and before that, he trained at the Royal College of Art.

He has an impressive collection of pictures,

but one is particularly special.

He inherited it and was told it was painted by Lucian Freud

as a teenager in 1939.

Well, it's, you know, certainly a painting you notice, isn't it?

It is. I mean, that's...

I'm glad to see - if it's a Freud - he's got his clothes on!

I was wondering what we were going to be presented with!

But it's got a real drama to it, hasn't it?

Few of Freud's juvenile pieces ever appear on the market.

It's unsigned, but if this really is by him,

it could be a rare and valuable survivor.

Have you shown this to anybody?

I've shown it to other experts and interestingly,

they have all immediately said this is a very interesting,

very important picture by Freud...

until they spoke to Freud.

Hang on, tell me more about that.

In 1985, it was taken to Christie's

and Christie's initially said, "Yes, this is a Freud,"

and put it into the catalogue

and then they spoke to Lucian Freud himself and he denied it.

These are the letters from Christie's.

So Christie's accepted it as a genuine Freud, then they, what,

-spoke to Freud?

-Yes.

"I sent a photograph of your painting attributed to Lucian Freud

"to the artist and he's now replied.

"I'm afraid he says this is not one of his works."

So... What are we doing here?

Other experts believe that it is a Freud.

-What, even if Freud himself...

-A lot of experts...

-..says it's not by him?

-Exactly.

'It's a pretty extraordinary challenge.

'If we take on this picture, we're taking on Lucian Freud himself.'

-Yeah, it's obviously deeply annoying if the artist...

-I'll say!

..himself has said it's not by him,

but we're dealing with Lucian Freud and he was a tricky,

unpredictable man and it's not necessarily the end of the story.

The mystery surrounding this painting dates back to 1939,

when Lucian, seen here with grandfather Sigmund,

and brother Stephen, arrived aged 16

to study at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing.

There, Freud is believed to have painted the portrait,

which somehow came into the hands of a fellow student,

Denis Wirth-Miller, the man who was to give John the painting.

So how did you acquire this painting

and is there anything about the acquisition of it

that gives a reason why Lucian Freud would turn it down?

I was given it by an artist called Denis Wirth-Miller,

who was a student with Lucian Freud

at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing,

very young, 18, 19, 20.

And Freud was younger than Denis and they hated each other.

They hated each other for their lifetime.

So why did Denis end up with a painting by Freud, then,

if they hated each other so much?

The story that I first heard was that Lucian Freud had allowed Denis

to have it to use the reverse of the canvas to paint on,

because you couldn't get canvas during the war

and it was a luxury to have the canvas.

The other possibility is that it was stolen.

'If the painting is stolen, that could be a problem.

'John was told a rather mischievous story

'about how it may have happened.'

'The students at Benton End were exhibiting their work

'in the art tent of a county fair, the Tendring Show.

'Lucian Freud was showing the portraits in competition

'with work by Denis Wirth-Miller.'

I heard from the story that in the morning,

as the sun rose and the tent was opened,

that there was an empty easel where this had sat the night before.

So, hang on a minute. So, while Denis was alive,

he told you two different stories as to how he might have acquired

this painting, which doesn't fill me with huge confidence, I have to say.

It doesn't, but whatever the root,

what is interesting is they were all there at the scene of the crime -

Freud was there, they knew Freud, so however the route...

..it's pretty exciting as a potential provenance.

It is, but the route is pretty damn important

and if you've got the person who owned it

giving two different versions of how he came to acquire it,

we have to look into that.

Yes, there lies my problem.

We've not taken on a task like this before.

No. And yeah, it's not often that we have to arm-wrestle a dead artist

who says it's not by him.

The original owner of John's picture also left him a huge archive -

80 years of photos, diaries, documents and accounts.

I'm going to see if there are any clues there,

while Philip examines the portrait in more detail.

What this artist is doing, and let's hope it's Freud,

is he's latching upon an aspect of the face that appeals to him

and he's exaggerating it.

He's doing what an artist does in the mid-20th century.

You know, modern art at that time is so much about breaking rules.

As a young man, Freud was attracted to new ideas coming from Europe,

experimenting with an almost grotesque style of portraiture.

We know he took a particular approach to the face -

he's trying to reach in and pull out a fresh and original style

of characterisation that can be called Freud.

How long have you been trying to get this Freud authenticated?

Since 1997, when I was given it.

-Did you ever feel like giving up?

-I've frequently given up!

It goes back in the attic

and it's usually somebody else who starts it off.

And the whole journey begins again.

-"Come look at my Freud!"

-Yes. Exactly, exactly, exactly.

'The two men at the centre of this mystery

'are John's friends, Denis Wirth-Miller

'and his lifelong partner Richard Chopping, both now dead.

'They were students at art school with Lucian Freud.'

Tell me about Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard Chopping.

They were both artists.

Richard Chopping, also known as Dickie,

was probably best known for the covers that he did for Ian Fleming

and for the James Bond novels.

And Denis Wirth-Miller was a painter - and a painter of note,

he was selling well in top London galleries.

'Dickie and Denis mixed with some of the big names in modern art.'

So they were close, then - Dickie, Denis and Francis Bacon.

They were incredibly close.

For the last 45 years of Bacon's life,

these three spent masses of time together.

Also, he was friends with Lucian Freud as well, but then he fell out.

He was. That's the story of the normal lifetime

of this group of artists.

Constant rows, constant falling out, but that was all part of the game.

If this turns out to be a genuine Freud...

-..what will you do with it?

-If this was authenticated,

this would be the one painting that I would take to auction

just to see this journey through

after having spent so much time on it.

Doing a valuation of the work of a 16-year-old isn't particularly easy,

but actually, it's a very mature-looking painting.

It's got power and presence,

so let's just think about that and the name of Lucian Freud.

If we can attach that magical name,

and the market love him at the moment...

..we must be talking...

half a million pounds.

Perhaps more.

Throughout his career, Freud painted family and friends.

The sitter in this portrait, according to John's records,

was a man called John Jamieson.

We'll need to find out more about him.

But like everything associated with this picture,

evidence is hard to come by.

It's a portrait with a dubious past,

for the artist has denied painting it - why go on?

But I've been looking into the character of the artist

and I think I might be onto something.

The great conundrum at the heart of this investigation is why would

Freud deny a painting was by him if in fact he did paint it.

Why would he do that?

Is it because it's an early work and he's ashamed of it,

doesn't want to be associated with it?

Certainly in all the research that I've done about Freud,

it's clear that when it comes to his own work...

being out there on people's walls or on the open market,

he was very, very controlling.

I've come across one interesting example.

A still life from 1942, called Basket And Fruit,

that was sold as a genuine Freud in the 1970s.

Yet when the painting was due to be exhibited in Israel, 20 years later,

trouble began.

Lucian Freud said actually the painting had been tampered with,

someone else had painted part of it

and therefore he couldn't acknowledge it as a work of his own.

Freud insisted that the picture be withdrawn,

claiming that although the original line drawing was by him,

the watercolour had been added later by another artist,

a man called John Craxton, who Freud had fallen out with.

The gallery that had handled the original sale didn't believe Freud

and engaged in a heated exchange of letters with him.

John Craxton even took a test to show that his fingerprints

were not on the picture, but Freud wouldn't back down.

Despite Freud's protests,

when Basket And Fruit was put on the market two years later,

complete with all those indignant letters,

it was sold as a work by Lucian Freud anyway.

Finding out the truth about our painting will be challenging.

We're going to have to dig into Freud's past.

Fake Or Fortune's specialist art researcher Dr Bendor Grosvenor

has come to meet the team in Soho at the French House,

a regular haunt of artists and writers in post-war London.

-Hello.

-Hi, there.

-Hi.

-I've got to say,

I think alarm bells start ringing if someone summons me to a pub

and says, "Here's a Lucian Freud."

But it's a crucial part of this murky story,

because it was here in this pub that Lucian Freud used to come and drink.

And other artists came here - Dickie Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller

were also here from time to time.

We're talking about the 1950s and 1960s

and people were making alliances,

they were falling out, there were jealousies, there were rivalries...

We're talking about unreliable witnesses -

that's part of the problem here.

Well, actually, I've got a very interesting document here

which gives us a glimpse into the enmities and hostilities

that we're dealing with in that world. It's, er...

written by Dickie Chopping at 4.50am one morning.

He woke up and he wrote a list of reasons that he was really cross

with Lucian Freud and it's actually quite useful for us, I think.

"Lucian comes, age 16, expelled from Bryanston, to Benton End.

"His anger," this is Lucian Freud's anger, I assume,

"at Mr Green's Textile Competition and the addition to his design.

"My anger," Dickie's anger,

"at Lucian's addition to my flower painting."

This is a fantastic rant in the small hours,

almost 50 years after they were at art school together.

I think it's interesting that they're talking about tampering

with each other's pictures and you just get a sense

of how much they disliked each other, so, you know,

could that explain some of the contradicting stories

-we've been given so far?

-You know, I wonder, with this fabulous feud

between the three of them,

could Dickie and Denis, just out of spite, try to pass off a fake,

make some money out of it and embarrass him while they're at it?

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd go for the financial motive.

I mean, when this picture was presented for sale in 1985,

it was before Lucian Freud had had a retrospective exhibition

and he wasn't making money. The estimate was £2,500 to £4,000.

Now, if you're going to fake an artist,

you're going to choose bigger game.

Of course, Dickie and Denis had original paintings by Francis Bacon

that were worth far more, so why would they bother?

Yes, and also it would be an odd thing to do, wouldn't it, with

the full exposure of the art world, to put your fake into auction?

I mean, everyone would be able to see it, discuss it,

including of course Lucian Freud himself.

'This story risks being one man's word against another's -

'what we need is hard evidence.

'I'm taking the picture to Libby Sheldon,

'expert in the scientific analysis of paintings.'

So, Libby, you know what we want from you -

can you help us prove that this is an early work by Lucian Freud?

So, what date are you looking at?

So 1939 or 1940, when he's at school and he's a 16-year-old.

Goodness, it's a sort of time when everybody experimented, didn't they?

'The first thing for Libby to do

'is investigate the unusual backdrop to the portrait.'

There's a sort of battered,

almost attacked feeling to the background.

And the suggestion of something else coming through?

Yes, it certainly looks as if there's another composition,

doesn't it, underneath? Let me turn it...

..that way.

There's these trees, aren't there?

Actually, when you place it like that,

it's evident that we're dealing with a landscape behind, with two trees,

a mountain...

..but done the other way round.

Yes. Well, that of course would be typical of somebody reusing a canvas

is to negate that landscape by doing that,

but you'd think in some ways that somebody would have made

more of an effort to cover it over.

It has been rubbed down using white spirit or something.

'Libby's next step is to put the painting under the microscope

'and she makes a fascinating discovery.'

But what's that?

Actually, it looks like a hair, but is it a brush hair, or...?

I think it's an actual hair.

It goes on into the black paint.

-So...

-It's quite long.

So... So...not necessarily a paintbrush hair, but a human hair?

-Human hair.

-How absolutely fascinating.

Yeah, it does seem to be so, quite a long hair.

So... So it's possible that we could have embedded in this picture...

..a clue, a piece of DNA, perhaps.

Yes, actual DNA.

-Um...

-So even if we can't get to the hand of the artist,

we might be able to get to his scalp.

That's true!

Bendor, meanwhile, is trying to establish

who the subject of the portrait is.

Tate Britain's archives hold the papers of many important artists.

Bendor's hoping information found here will help to confirm evidence

he's found in John's own archive.

I've got here one of the key bits of evidence about our picture.

It's a note in Denis's handwriting,

which apparently identifies the sitter in the portrait

as someone called John Jamieson.

He goes on to say that a fellow student

of the East Anglian School of Painting remembers the picture

being painted after the fire which destroyed the school,

that was July 28th, 1939,

and before the outbreak of war, that was September 3rd, 1939.

So really only a two-month window.

At the moment, we don't know a great deal about John Jamieson,

we've just been told he had two particular interests,

one of which was sailors in Ipswich and the other was black magic,

which is quite a combination.

Amongst the papers of Cedric Morris,

the founder of the East Anglian School of Painting,

there are letters from John Jamieson.

And they make it very clear

that not only did he know Lucian Freud quite well -

it talks about meeting him on a number of occasions -

but that he had been down to the East Anglian School of Painting

at some point before December 1939.

And it's very likely, reading the dates,

that he's talking about going there in the summer of 1939.

This puts Jamieson in the right place at the right time.

For me, I find it quite heartening, because we can begin to trust

some of the evidence that we've been given.

I suppose what we need to do now is find a photograph

to see if it really is him in our painting.

My next step is to visit the place at the heart of this mystery -

the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing,

which was based at Benton End House in Hadleigh in Suffolk.

I'm going with John, the owner of the picture,

to try to understand the world his painting emerged from.

What I love about this story is it's so full of intrigue and deception,

so it seems only fitting we should go back to where it all began...

which is at Benton End House

-and which is where the drawing school was for 42 years.

-Exactly.

And it's somewhere I've wanted to see

ever since I knew Dickie and Denis.

But to be able to compare the old photographs and the old paintings

and look at the studios and the barns, I can't wait to do it.

'Lucian Freud came to East Anglia in the summer of 1939 at the age of 16,

'having been expelled from his last school for disruptive behaviour.

'Here he found an idiosyncratic art school,

'where young artists were largely given a free rein

'to develop their own talent.'

So here we are in Benton End,

which was like a little bubble of bohemian living in wartime Britain

and it was run by Cedric Morris.

A talented artist in his own right,

Cedric Morris was perhaps the most important figure

in Lucian Freud's artistic development.

He's seen here painting the young Lucian.

And Lucian, Denis and Dickie,

Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller,

from whom you inherited your picture,

they were all students here together, weren't they?

Yes, they were the youngest three.

Were Dickie and Denis and Lucian friends while they were here?

They were. They were very close together,

but as with a lot of these people, as they get older,

a lot of rivalry came into this,

but they were definitely close at this stage.

'A world away from drab wartime Britain and rationing,

'there were long lunches of exotic Mediterranean food and wine

'and a constant stream of visitors.'

You can see in this photograph Lucian Freud is wearing a fez.

I think the outfits worn by people here were pretty outlandish,

and outlandish for their time.

'The young artists cast aside the usual collar and tie

'and wore open-neck shirts and cravats -

'exactly like the subject of our painting.

'The relaxed atmosphere meant there was very little record-keeping

'that might help support our picture's authenticity,

'but John has one piece of evidence which again links the man

'we believe to be the sitter to Benton End.'

This record you've got from your archive of Dickie and Denis is...

This is a brief moment when someone was actually keeping a record!

-That's true!

-What does it show us about who was here?

This was from 1941 and they kept these records -

Dickie and Denis kept these records -

and it shows who came as guests here,

who was here as students, and shows us what money the people put in.

So, very importantly, in...

So this was contributing to the financial upkeep of the household.

-Lucian.

-Yeah.

-And that can only be Lucian Freud.

Yep. Then we've got Cedric and fascinatingly, John Jamieson.

So that is a very important document for me.

'It's another confirmation that John Jamieson,

'the man that we believe is the subject of the painting,

'visited Benton End when Lucian was there.'

Bendor's next job is to prove, or disprove,

the stories about how Dickie and Denis got the picture.

If it was given to them by Lucian, or found by them at the art school,

there won't have been a paper trail,

but in the Suffolk County records office, Bendor can check out

the story about the painting being stolen from an art tent.

I'm trying to chase down one of the stories we've been told

about where our painting comes from.

Apparently, it was put into an art tent in a village fete

in a place called Tendring in 1939

and just at the moment when the tent was about to open,

the artist went in and discovered Lucian Freud's painting was missing.

The Tendring show did not run at all between 1932 and 1946,

so if there was an art tent,

it must have been at another show in 1939 or '40.

The local papers are rather detailed about every aspect

of these thrilling events.

At the St John's fete here, we learn that they have a darts competition

and even something called a pig-rolling competition,

which was won by a lady called Mrs Death,

and frankly, the mind boggles.

However, I've been going through the whole of 1939 and I cannot find

a single mention of anything like an art tent.

And worse still, from 1940, after the war has broken out,

all these events stopped completely,

so I'm led to conclude that, unfortunately,

the story about the painting coming from an art tent is not true.

The alternatives, I suppose, is that Lucian Freud somehow

gave the picture to someone else, possibly for reuse.

Or that the painting was taken from some other place,

maybe from Benton End itself.

However, the alarming possibility now arises

that if this story is fake,

then maybe the picture is also fake.

Given the lack of evidence,

it seems unlikely that we'll ever be able to find out

how Dickie and Denis came by the painting.

Perhaps our best course of action now

is to focus our attention on the canvas itself.

I've been doing a little research

and I've tracked down a genuine Freud, painted in 1940,

just a year after our own picture.

'The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff have agreed to let us

'put both portraits side-by-side for a direct comparison

'under the watchful eye

'of the museum's Curator of Modern Art, Nick Thornton.'

So this is a portrait by Lucian Freud when he was 17 years old

of the man who taught him

at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Cedric Morris.

Yes, it's painted by Freud in 1940 when he was still a pupil

at the East Anglia School of Painting and Drawing.

Seeing them sitting next to each other,

it's fascinating immediately to settle upon the brushstrokes

and there seems to be a slightly hesitant, almost neurotic, way

with little stabs of the brush

that you see the contours of the face described

and I can see it in the forehead of the Lucian Freud of Cedric

and our possible Lucian Freud as well.

Absolutely. I think the interesting thing,

that this looks more immediate,

slightly more naive than our work, but there is, er...

There are interesting comparisons in terms of the choice of colour,

they're almost mixing colours across the face to create form and tone.

Let's just think about the face for the moment,

because there's something to do with the asymmetry,

the sort of wilful bending of the nose and the placing of the mouth

slightly off centre that I can see is a feature shared by both.

Absolutely. One thing that Freud learned from Morris at this time

was creating a sort of psychological intensity within the relationship

with the sitter and often he did that

by kind of exaggerating certain features,

so that it almost borders on caricature.

And if our painting is going to be by Lucian Freud,

it's probably going to be a year before this.

If it was by Lucian Freud, it would be a painting by a teenager,

so if there is some tentativeness around it,

that's something perhaps you would expect.

I'm so pleased we've done this,

we have compared our picture now to a known Lucian Freud

that he did when he was 17 years old.

And to my mind, there are unquestionably characteristics,

similarities, not just the characterisation - that edgy,

slightly unsettling way that the face is done,

but also the technique.

The little sort of giveaway traits

that of course come from Cedric Morris, the subject of the picture.

So that's great, it takes us to where we want to be,

to the person who's influencing him, but, of course,

there's a whole load of other students there at the same time.

You know, 15 or thereabouts,

all of whom are going to be picking up on this style...

..so we're certainly getting closer...

..but we've got further to go.

We're beginning to understand the world our picture came from.

Now we're meeting at Phillips Gallery

to see if we can take the next step

and link the portrait directly to Lucian Freud himself.

-Hi, Bendor.

-Hi.

Now, our early provenance I don't think is looking very good.

The county fair story, well, I just can't make it work -

I don't think it's true at all.

And the other stories, well, even if they are true,

they're not going to give us a paper trail,

so we've got nothing tangible to go with.

Let's just remind ourselves what those other theories were.

Either Freud gave Denis the painting so that Denis could reuse it,

he reused the canvas when they were at

the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing together,

or Freud left it lying around and Denis picked it up.

And certainly, having been there and seen the rather chaotic way

in which people worked, I think it's very plausible...

I mean, look at this picture here of Cedric Morris at Benton End.

The canvases are just left stacked against the wall,

so it's certain, I can imagine, that Denis picked it up

possibly from the old barn.

Yes, and I've come across accounts from other students who just say

they left their artwork behind, but have a look at this,

this is another early picture by Lucian Freud.

In fact, it shows Dickie Chopping

and we know that this picture was left at Benton End

until at least the 1970s.

See, that's another useful stylistic addition to our body of work

in which I think our painting fits. Now, if you put the two together...

..immediately you see what I think is a really compelling comparison.

I mean, both lapels are rather floppy and sort of organic looking

and the eyes, they're so specific, aren't they?

They're both pencil-sharp

and those highly sort of artificial looking drawn-in eyebrows above.

I've got a drawing here from Freud's sketchbook of 1939, '40,

so about the time that we think our picture was made

and I think if you compare it to our picture,

you can see the way Freud has sort of inserted

these almost wilful distortions in the face.

I guess what Freud is looking for here, in representing the sitter,

whoever it may be, is the features that really struck him,

so his eyebrows, the hair...

..the slightly lopsided mouth.

I mean, it would be fascinating if we managed to find a photograph

of that chap, if those are the things that really stand out.

So, stylistically, I think this picture

is stacking up more and more.

Now, when I was with Libby, I came across, in the paint,

can you believe it, a human hair.

Look at that, clear as day!

Now, if we can get DNA from it,

it's not impossible that we can prove that it's Lucian Freud's.

That would be an astonishing piece of evidence for us.

John has given Libby permission to remove the hair from the picture.

It's being rushed to King's College London,

whose forensic science lab regularly works with the Metropolitan Police.

This job is a touch unusual for expert in DNA identification,

Dr Denise Syndercombe-Court.

So, Denise, we have a particular challenge.

We found, in the picture that we hope to be by Lucian Freud, a hair.

Now, it could well be a human hair

and is it possible for us to extract DNA?

Well, first of all we've got to make sure

that we can get some reliable DNA out of it.

Once that, then we need something or somebody to compare it with.

Somebody who is either Lucian Freud, and I guess he's not around...

erm, or somebody who is related to him.

Hair contains a particular form of DNA

which is only passed from mother to child.

This means Freud's own children are no use for this test,

but we've tracked down his mother's sister's daughter

and she's agreed to give us a sample of her DNA.

If the hair in our picture belonged to Lucian Freud,

she should provide an exact match.

So even if the hair has been encased in paint for what could be 80 years,

we can still get at the DNA?

Well, actually, the fact that it's been stuck on a painting

might actually preserve it because it stops it...

Stops the light getting to it, stops moisture getting to it,

all these things preserve the hair and preserve the DNA in the hair.

At the scene of a crime, hair is a poor source of DNA.

Even with the most up-to-date techniques,

it's not always possible to extract a meaningful sample.

The painstaking process will take at least four days.

But if the result brings our picture closer to Lucian Freud,

it's worth the wait.

'I'm in search of someone who spoke directly to Lucian Freud

'about John's picture.

'And I've managed to persuade Lucian's daughter, Rose Boyt,

'to give us an interview. It's an important opportunity

'as we understand she knows of John's picture

'and may have discussed it with her father.'

When did you first see the painting?

I first saw the painting in 2006.

John showed me the painting

and then, at that time, I felt very strongly

that I didn't want to take the painting round to my father's.

I felt that if I did take it round there,

he would probably put his fist through it.

Thought he'd put his fist through it why?

Because he hated the intrusion of people

saying, "Did you do this?" and, "Didn't you do it?"

and I felt that if he hadn't identified it

in the normal course of things,

that that meant he didn't want to,

and the reason he didn't want to

was probably because either because it was stolen

or that it wasn't by him or that he hated it.

I can completely understand

that if you did something you didn't think was good,

you wouldn't want anyone to see it,

you certainly wouldn't want to sell it,

wouldn't want it to be in a museum.

So you didn't take it...

-No.

-..to show to your father.

-No.

-You didn't dare, by the sounds of it.

It wasn't that I didn't dare, it's just I thought the painting...

He would destroy the painting.

Whether it was by him or not, I thought he would destroy it,

and then I'd have to say to John,

"Oh, you know your Lucian Freud, it is no more."

So did your father ever talk about Dickie and Denis?

He didn't like them...

for reasons of his own.

But my father did used to enjoy disliking people,

so that's not necessarily...

He liked a good feud?

Well, not necessarily a feud, but just...

He would have a reaction to certain people,

and some people he just wouldn't be able to stand.

Tell me how your father would, um...

..go to some pains to ensure that work that he...liked

would be in the public domain,

but work that he didn't might perhaps not be?

He would have a "destroying his paintings that he didn't like

"or wasn't going to finish" session,

so he might get one of my brothers to go round to the studio and spend,

um, six or seven hours destroying paintings

that he didn't feel were working.

So that would be a very good and clear way of editing his work.

So revealing, talking to Lucian Freud's daughter, Rose, there.

She's given us plenty of reasons

why he might have turned this painting down.

He clearly loathed Dickie and Denis,

he was very controlling about his output and what left his studio,

she told me that as well.

But that's all speculation.

I need to know, if it is by Freud,

why did he reject it?

This painting has been bouncing around the art world

for more than 30 years, so I think it stands to reason

that Freud would have been approached about this work

more than once in that time.

Someone must have spoken directly to him about it,

and I need to find whoever that person was

and speak to him or her directly myself.

'While Fiona goes in search of Freud's first-hand testimony,

'I'm hoping science can give us a direct link

'between the artist and John's painting.

'The results of the DNA tests are in,

'so John and I are off to see Denise Syndercombe-Court.'

Well, so far, John, as you know,

we've got nothing that physically connects this painting

to Lucian Freud.

My first question to you therefore, Denise,

is have we managed to extract some DNA from the painting?

-From the hair on the painting, yes.

-From the hair on the painting.

So the next question, I suppose,

is have you managed to narrow that down?

Yes, we have. The good-quality DNA from that

has given us a group that we can place that maternal origin into.

And have you been able to compare that group

with the swab that was taken

from the female relation of Lucian Freud?

-Yes, we have.

-It was a...

Was it a human hair?

-It was a human hair.

-That's my Jack Russell out of the equation. Good.

And...

what was the result?

Well, we got a particular type from Lucian Freud's maternal relative...

..but it doesn't match

with the sample from the painting, unfortunately.

How do you feel, John?

Well, it's one step forward, one step backwards.

So as much as we would love it to be so,

it's not Lucian Freud's.

-I'm so sorry!

-No! Thank you, it's fascinating to have done it,

it's absolutely amazing to have done it.

Oh, well, we're going to have to go back to other things.

Back to the drawing board.

I'm still trying to find someone

who spoke directly to Lucian Freud about John's painting,

and finally I've had a breakthrough.

It seems an auction house may have consulted Freud about our picture

just five years before his death.

I've been looking into the most recent occasion

Lucian Freud was shown our painting, and it appears to have been 2006.

Now, he was an artist who guarded his privacy jealously -

you didn't just ring him up about a picture,

everything had to go through a third party.

And back in 2006, that third party was his solicitor, Diana Rawstron,

and she works here.

And if anyone would have discussed our painting with Lucian Freud,

it would have been her.

'Diana has ordered her 2006 files from the archive.

'Could they hold the answer?'

Right. That looks intriguing.

Diana, you have worked as a solicitor for Freud,

while he was alive, for many years.

How often would you be talking to him, then?

I should think I spoke to him nearly every working day

and occasionally at weekends.

What was he like to deal with?

He was delightful.

He was very polite, courteous.

He was phenomenally intelligent.

Did you, um, ever...

..discuss our painting with him?

Yes, he telephoned.

These were my files for 2006 for everything I did,

but I had a fairly good idea it would be on this general file.

And you made notes of the telephone conversation?

Well, a scribbled note - I'd have written it better

if I thought it was going to be on a television programme!

But it was just for my purposes.

-So the next day...

-Here we go, 6th April...

"LF," Lucian Freud...

"Started by him but someone has completed."

-But hang on, he's saying it is partly by him.

-Yes.

Well, this is... I have to say, this is a massive breakthrough for us.

Because, so far, all we've had is Lucian Freud saying it's not by him,

or his daughter not even really wanting to present it to him

because she was so worried what his response would be.

But here we have, as close to from the horse's mouth as we can get,

that he's saying he did at least start it.

-Yes.

-"Shirt..."

-You'll have to help me here!

-"Shirt, body, neck by LF..."

-By Lucian Freud.

-"..and part of head."

But he has actually done part of this painting.

I think the main thing was, he knew it had been started by him,

but he was sort of speculating a bit about which bits he might have done.

And in terms of who finished it...?

No.

-No information about that?

-No, he didn't make a comment about that.

I don't think you can take this as definitive.

And I think you should bear in mind that he's looking at this painting

how many years later? 65 years later, I think.

Just out of interest, why,

when you replied to Christie's about whether Freud painted this or not,

you just said, "I regret he is not able to authenticate

"the work as by him." Why did you phrase it in that way,

rather than saying, "He says he painted part of it,

"but not all of it"?

He didn't want that said.

I mean, if they weren't by him, they weren't by him.

So partly by him wasn't good enough...

-No.

-It was either all by him, or not at all.

Either all by him, or not at all.

Phil, I've some rather interesting news for you -

what I think is a real breakthrough for us.

I'm at the offices of Lucian Freud's former solicitor,

and what she said is he painted some of it -

he started the painting, but he didn't finish it.

'So we have that, then, from the man himself?'

We have it from the man himself

via his solicitor and her contemporaneous notes.

'That's a transformative nugget of information we've just got.'

It is. It has just taken us such a massive step forward.

'Oh, it's a triumph!'

I'm very mindful, though, Phil,

this is Freud musing about a painting

decades after it was done.

So I'm wondering if maybe he could have painted a little bit less

than is written in this note? Maybe a little bit more?

'It should be possible to analyse the picture now

'and see whether or not there are different campaigns

'by different hands.'

Well, that sounds like just what we need.

Bendor has a breakthrough of his own.

He and John are on the trail of the possible subject of the painting,

John Jamieson.

Using clues from Jamieson's letters,

we've managed to identify his old school as Winchester College,

and it seems they may have photographs.

So, John, I think, looking at Freud's picture,

if it is by Lucian Freud...

..it's difficult to judge a likeness from it, isn't it?

I mean, in terms of a conventional portrait,

but there are certain aspects of the face

that I think we can assume that Freud featured

because they struck him.

So the slightly...

..tilted mouth, the piercing eyes.

We've got... The hairstyle is quite good to focus on.

So we've got a side parting there and the hint of a widow's peak,

and sort of dense, curly hair.

-Long face...

-Mm, slightly longer face, yes.

So I've got some photographs here of Jamieson when he was here in 1933 -

the year he left, so...

If I... I'm sorry to test you like this,

but it's probably quite a good exercise. If I cover up the names...

I'll need glasses for this!

Because that will be a good test as to whether, actually,

we're spotting a likeness.

See if you can...

See if anyone in this photograph strikes you...

as the sitter in your portrait.

-Take your time.

-JOHN LAUGHS

OK, so this is the multimillion-dollar...

choose-which-one...

I think I might... I think I'm going to go there.

Have I got it? No!

I'm not joking, that's him.

-No!

-Yeah.

That's extraordinary!

There are definite details that match here.

Eyes close together and those distinctive brows.

The long nose and prominent ears,

the off-centre mouth

with the slight upward kink on the left,

plus the thick hair with the side parting.

What you've done here is - I'm really pleased about that.

-Extraordinary!

-I think it's a really valid demonstration,

because these are the features

that Freud has picked up on,

and they've translated into that picture.

But what really fascinates me about that as well

is that so many people over the 20 years that I've owned this painting

are saying, "Well, it's not a very good portrait, is it?"

Well...

it must be!

It must be, exactly!

That's such a telling point.

Freud, as we know, was actually a brilliant portraitist.

And at that point, a very, um, early precocious talent...

-Yes.

-..for portraiture.

It's got to be him, hasn't it?

Yeah, yeah. I'm knocked out by that, I really am!

-It's incredible.

-Good. Good.

This suddenly seems

a more accomplished portrait than we thought.

Building on Freud's own admission via his solicitor,

I think we can go further

and argue that more of the figure of Jamieson

is in fact by Lucian Freud.

I'm heading back to see Libby Sheldon.

Can her scientific analysis help us to understand

which parts Freud painted

and which, if any, he did not?

OK, Libby. The stakes are really getting higher.

We have, recorded, the words of the artist himself when he was alive,

that the body, the shirt,

the neck

and a part of the face is actually by him.

Now, the question is, can we determine what the artist did

and what someone else might have done?

The neck, what does he mean by that?

-Because...

-I mean, that's a good point.

Is he incorporating the skin up here, or is it just this cravat?

Interestingly enough,

this is one point which I've been looking at, and you can see...

um, that the white and the black,

or blackish-blue of the scarf,

is very well integrated...

with the white.

Yes. So in other words, the shirt,

the wet paint of the shirt,

is going into the wet paint of the scarf.

Yes, there's absolutely no time difference,

I wouldn't say that this was put on top.

So I suppose the big question, therefore,

is can we find something similar

to the treatment of that scarf in the face?

It's interesting, because this black here

and this browny-black of the hair are very closely related.

Physically, in terms of the pigment make-up

and the manner in which they've been applied.

'Libby believes that if Freud painted the cravat,

'he also painted the hair.

'And her pigment analysis

'can help link other parts of the head to Freud.

'The white of the shirt and the forehead are the same pigment,

'and we know he painted the shirt.

'These areas of mixed pink and yellow match up

'and feature the same distinctive brushwork.

'The way the black and the white paint of the eyes

'is worked in with the surrounding skin

'shows they couldn't have been added later.

'Lastly, the paint over most of the face

'is a consistent one layer thick,

'making it highly unlikely that a later hand completed it.'

He's actually painted it

using the underlying landscape.

So, you see this green here?

That just goes under the red of the lip.

Actually, that's really interesting, isn't it?

Because it shows it's not an unfinished picture -

the artist is trying to use the scraped-down background

with the landscape showing through

as part of the overall composition.

I don't think he minded that landscape,

I think he was making the most of it.

OK, so everything you point out seems to suggest

that this painting came together

in one thought process, in one campaign.

Absolutely, I don't have any hesitation, really,

in saying the links all over the painting

really tie it into a single artist.

It would be very surprising

if somebody else took up exactly the same way of using the brush,

exactly the same range of pigments...

applying them in the same way.

I'm absolutely certain that it's a single hand.

Armed with Libby's scientific findings

and the note from Freud's lawyer,

we've come as far as we can.

We've persuaded three leading authorities on Freud's work

to now give their verdict on our picture.

James Kirkman was Freud's art dealer for 30 years.

Art critic William Feaver is Freud's biographer

and was a close friend.

And Toby Treves is currently compiling the catalogue raisonne -

a complete list of Freud's authentic work.

While we're confident of our evidence,

it's quite another thing to ask three experts

to put their reputations on the line

and go against the opinion of the artist himself.

This is not the usual Fake Or Fortune verdict,

because normally when we find ourselves before a panel

of august experts such as yourselves,

we are asking, is the painting by a particular artist.

But we already know, through Lucian Freud,

from a conversation he had with his solicitor,

that he painted at least...

..the shirt, the body, the neck and part of the head.

That much we already know.

So, gentlemen, the opinion of you three combined

will be extraordinarily important in relation to this picture.

In fact, it will be make or break.

Now, the more we've looked into this,

the more we consider this whole work to be by Lucian Freud,

but that is our view.

We now need yours, we need to ask you the question -

can we call this, can we baptise it, a work by Lucian Freud?

I think one thing we've got to ask ourselves

is why Lucian was unhappy about the picture, why he has...

apparently rejected it.

Every artist is unhappy with certain pictures that they've done,

particularly what you've done when you were at school.

I think being a schoolboy, basically,

he just put it down at the end of the day

and went on to something else later.

But does he think it's finished?

We're looking at this as a finished painting,

it's hard to argue that the landscape itself

is anything we've seen in any other Freud painting.

I think it was a schoolboy's early attempt at a portrait,

and it works pretty well in those respects, I think.

Yes, I think it's good.

Except for the cravat - the cravat is awful.

Well, it's not finished.

It's time for the experts to reach their verdict...

behind closed doors!

We're hoping that the combination of Libby's evidence -

a single hand at work on the painting -

and Freud's own admission that he at least started it, will be enough.

When we found that note,

kept by Freud's solicitor,

in which he said that he had painted part of this painting,

it felt like the smoking gun.

But as it turns out,

the truth is much more complicated than that,

as ever, with this picture.

I mean, what a test.

Are they going to be able to say,

after an artist has said it's not by him entirely, that it is?

It's, frankly, a real conundrum.

Hi, John.

'After much deliberation, a verdict has been reached.

'It's time to tell John whether or not he's the owner

'of a half-million-pound Lucian Freud.'

It's quite a while since we've all been together,

here, with you, and your painting.

-True.

-How are you feeling?

Er, I think, after 19 years,

I can well and truly say...

er, very, very apprehensive.

Well, it's become more interesting since we last met.

I had a conversation with Lucian Freud's lawyer, Diana Rawstron.

As far as you knew,

Lucian Freud had denied that this painting was by him.

-That's right, yes.

-She asked him about your picture.

Freud said...

..he did paint part of this picture.

Now that's what he said in 2006.

The fact that this was on Lucian Freud's radar,

that he spoke to his lawyer about it,

is absolutely incomprehensible to me.

So this was a massive breakthrough.

-Unbelievable!

-And I have to say,

we've analysed this picture really carefully

and, personally, I'm entirely satisfied that it's by Lucian Freud.

-Yes.

-So that was the moment where we decided to convene

a body of experts.

And they discussed it...

..and have some reactions.

It's in here.

This, after 19 years, is just...

sort of happening in slow motion to me at the moment.

So this is from the three of them.

"We believe this to be a work Lucian Freud did at art school,

"most probably in 1939.

"There is a split decision regarding the landscape..."

"..and the majority believe

"that it is part of the original painting."

OK, so my head's still spinning.

It begs just one big question from me.

And forgive me if I'm being thick.

Is it, or isn't it a Freud, then?

Well, the thing is, what you had

-was doors slamming in your face for 19 years.

-Exactly.

What you've got now, is you've got three of the most august experts

pronouncing on this painting,

and you've got two who are happy to say -

William Feaver and James Kirkman - it's a Freud.

'Toby Treves, the more cautious voice,

'is preparing the catalogue raisonne.

'He concedes the figure is probably by Freud,

'but argues that it can't be put into the full catalogue

'because he feels the picture is unfinished

'and the landscape behind not intended to be seen.

'So, on current evidence,

'he would only include the picture in the appendix,

'but it would still have considerable appeal.'

I can confidently say that this work is worth £200,000 to £300,000,

because of the mixed response,

and quite possibly more.

It is by Lucian Freud, but the question is,

how much is by him?

And that's a nice problem to have at this stage.

Wow.

Wow!

Well, I... I'm...

I'm kind of speechless, because it's just been,

as you know, standing here a few minutes ago,

not knowing which way this was going to go,

but it's just extraordinary that you've discovered this.

I mean, it's just extraordinary that that's come out of it.

-Are you happy with that result?

-Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm delighted. I mean, amazing.

It's just... I just kind of feel, um, also, that I wasn't mad.

Just when I got close to it, the lights,

and just seeing the colours and the paint build-up and things like that,

that I wasn't mad.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think that's a result.

I think it is. And also, we've broken new ground.

I mean, never before have we had to prove

that the picture is by an artist who has denied it.

Not any old artist, but one of the great figures of British art

in the 20th century.

Yeah, and of course it's a reminder

that this game isn't cut-and-dried, is it?

Attribution is a human process,

it's about different shades of response.

And let's look at what we've got -

we have a painting that is either by Lucian Freud now,

or largely by him.

And John couldn't be happier.

If you think you have an undiscovered masterpiece

or other precious object,

we'd love to hear from you, at...