Rodin Fake or Fortune?

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. 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-dah! 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! Isn't that great? It's wonderful.

..or bitter disappointment.

I can't cope with this roller-coaster.

What a nightmare.

In this episode, we're on the trail of a work of art believed to be

by arguably the world's most famous sculptor,

Auguste Rodin.

Could the man who created The Kiss and The Thinker

also have given us this enchanting sketch of a woman dancing?

The more time I spend with this drawing, the more I like it.

Our quest to find out the truth about a cherished possession

leads to Paris

and the little-known story of the sculptor's last great passion.

I just didn't realise there was so much behind the scenes.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked.

It's an investigation that plunges us into a forgery scandal

that has stunned the art world.

Imagine, fakes at the heart of the French art establishment.

The latest forensic techniques could help make our case.

They say that one's stroke is like one's fingerprints.

But the final decision rests on the opinion of an expert

with a keen eye for an impostor.

What's for sure is that,

whatever the outcome, this is a very close call.

Of all the requests for help we receive

from Fake Or Fortune viewers,

it's the ones that mention big names that really get our pulses racing,

like Picasso, Monet or van Gogh.

And one concerning a particularly captivating picture

'by another giant of the art world has caught Philip's eye.

'So I'm on my way to meet him at the gallery, to find out more.'

Hi, Philip. What have you got?

There's one that really intrigues me.

A drawing by the great sculptor Auguste Rodin.

When I was a student in Paris, I used to go to the Musee Rodin a lot,

because I loved being around his sculptures, particularly The Kiss.

And I would sort of hang around in front of it

trying to think French intellectual thoughts.

Did you ever get round to doing any real work at university?

No, not a lot.

But this is intriguing, because it's a drawing by Auguste Rodin.

Have a read of this.

"When my mother died in 2010,

"I inherited a watercolour that she always insisted was a Rodin

"of a Cambodian dancer,

"given to her as a thank you when my parents lived in Mexico."

Intriguing.

"Knowing my mother, and her artistic life in Mexico,

"I believe it to be a genuine Rodin.

"Can you help?" Now, that's all very interesting,

but actually it has nothing in there in the way of firm provenance.

No, but there's a lot to play for,

because anything by the great sculptor is interesting

and to get a drawing or watercolour by him,

that's a prize worth having.

Born in Paris in 1840,

Auguste Rodin worked as an ornamental craftsman,

until his genius for sculpture began to be recognised.

By the 1880s, his daring, unconventional approach

established his reputation

as the most famous sculptor of the modern era.

His most influential creations included The Kiss, The Thinker

and, in the heart of Westminster, The Burghers Of Calais.

What defines much of Rodin's sculpture

is his extraordinary ability to impart human movement and gesture

in a single, dramatic moment.

And this artistic style characterises his drawings, too.

He was also a prolific draughtsman,

making over 10,000 sketches and watercolours,

including a series of a troupe of dancers from Cambodia,

who toured Europe at the turn of the 20th century.

Today, these vibrant images of Cambodian dancers

are highly prized by collectors and rarely come on the market.

So, we're eager to find out more

about a potentially exciting discovery.

Owner Alice Thoday has offered to bring her picture

to the gallery, for examination.

Although she now lives in Lincolnshire,

Alice was born in Mexico, to Belgian parents.

When we see the drawing in the flesh,

will it stand up to close scrutiny?

On first inspection of this,

I think there are characteristics of the drawing

that look rather encouraging.

She looks like a Cambodian dancer

and, if it is by Auguste Rodin,

we know that he did about 150 drawings of them.

Alice believes her picture was given to her mother,

while they were living in Mexico in the 1940s.

So, take us back, then, Alice.

In the letter you sent us,

this belonged to your mother and she was given it.

She was given it when she and my father lived in Mexico.

My mother had been an artist in Belgium.

And somebody that worked with my father

owned or part-owned a restaurant called,

my mother thought, La Vie Parisienne.

And he asked her to paint some scenes of French life on these...

I think they were freestanding pillars.

And this was in a restaurant in Mexico? In Mexico City, yes.

And so she did that, and as a thank you, he then gave her the Rodin.

Where he got it from, I don't know.

And what was the name of this chap?

Somebody called Jimmy Heineman.

I mean, that would be an incredible payment,

for painting a restaurant. With the greatest respect to your mother,

who I'm sure was brilliant, but nonetheless, to be given a Rodin.

Yes.

Since Alice was a child,

her mother has always taken great care of the drawing.

It clearly meant a lot to her.

She said, obviously, with watercolours,

they're very prone to being damaged by light.

By sunlight, especially.

So she always made sure, in the afternoon, when the sun came in,

the curtains would be drawn, so that it was in the shade.

I was going to say,

that's what's quite encouraging about this drawing.

At first glance, the colours are still there.

And in the corner of the picture, there's a signature,

which appears to read "A Rodin".

If Alice's picture is genuine,

then it could be worth a considerable sum.

I mean, I can imagine a lot of collectors

wanting to get hold of this.

Really? I mean, it's a very attractive image.

Valuing it now is a little bit difficult,

but I know something not dissimilar at auction recently

made about ?110,000.

Really?

And what's your intention, if we do prove that it is a Rodin?

Do you want to sell it? I don't know.

It would almost be nice for it to be appreciated

by more than just me and my cats, if you see what I mean!

And if we discovered it to be a fake, how would you feel about it?

I would still love it, because I just think it's beautiful.

You know, even if it's a fake.

Whoever did it did a really good job.

Well, we'll give it a go.

I mean, I think it's an exciting-looking thing.

I think we've got everything to play for here.

And with Alice's blessing,

I'm keen to take a closer look at the picture

to get a better feel for its age and its quality.

The more time I spend with this drawing,

the more I'm getting to like it.

I like the way that the artist has managed

to capture genuine movement.

These hoops of thought -

it's not just from one angle, it's from another angle.

Although we know Rodin best as a sculptor,

he was an equally accomplished artist on paper.

Whether he was shaping a model in clay

or using a pencil to capture a dancer in mid-flow,

his intention was the same -

to record the essence of movement.

And we know Rodin said that sculpture is just drawing

in all its dimensions. In other words, a three-dimensional drawing.

So, in order to get a greater feel for this,

we have to get to the drawing itself.

The backboard is now...

is now removed from the main frame and I can take it out,

and now to get a look for the first time

for probably a very long time.

It's hinged.

It's certainly got an appearance of age.

I can easily see this being a century old, possibly more.

This swiftly executed drawing is made up of only a few lines

and a splash of watercolour on paper,

but replicating it might prove very tempting to a faker.

If you look at the painted areas,

particularly at the top of her dress,

around her cleavage, you can see that the watercolour has separated.

In that way that it does when you have too much water.

And it's added a sort of

feeling of texture, feeling of character, to the drawing.

The distinctive use of a deftly confident wash of colour

is an encouraging clue.

But is this from the brush of Rodin?

Or has a forger simply tried to fabricate his technique?

And to establish whether Alice's picture is genuine,

we need to call in our specialist researcher on provenance,

Dr Bendor Grosvenor, to investigate the history of the drawing.

Can he find any evidence that it belongs to the genuine series

of Cambodian dancers by Rodin himself?

It's thought that Rodin made about 150 drawings of Cambodian dancers

and we know 120 are already in the Musee Rodin in Paris.

I've had a check in other major museums of the world

and found 21 authentic works,

which potentially leaves fewer than ten in private hands.

In other words, if Alice's picture really is genuine,

then it's an extremely rare thing indeed.

Now, early provenance is always extremely useful

when we are trying to establish the authenticity of pictures like this,

so one of the first things we need to do

is have a look in the early sale records

and exhibition history of Rodin's drawings

and see if we can find anything at all

that might be a match for Alice's picture.

'So I'm going to look in the online records

'of some of the leading galleries in Paris,

'for any sales of Cambodian dancers.

'And I think I might have spotted a potentially significant lead.'

The very first exhibition of Rodin's drawings was in Paris in 1907,

at the well-established art dealership called Bernheim Jeune.

And I'm hoping that, for such a major place,

they would have produced a catalogue,

so, if they did, we need to find it.

'Typically, any art sales catalogues

'would contain descriptions and images of the pictures.

'So, it's vital I find one of these catalogues,

'to see if we can spot Alice's drawing.'

Rather helpfully, there's a catalogue online here.

Dessins de Rodin, October 1907, Paris,

chez Monsieur Bernheim Jeune.

Here we go. Right, number eight.

Cambodgienne.

Number 14, Cambodgienne, number...

Oh, dear, there's 156 drawings listed here,

and I can see dozens and dozens of things just called "Cambodgienne".

I'm afraid this is a rather useless list, from our point of view,

because there's absolutely no description here at all,

it's not illustrated. In other words,

there's nothing that we can firmly link to Alice's picture.

This is a significant setback.

This means we can't know which, if any,

of the pictures in the sale are Alice's.

And it is now extremely difficult to build any kind of paper trail.

To find out more about the origins of the picture,

I'm on my way to Lincolnshire, to visit Alice at her home.

She's offered to show me some of the mementos she has

from the time her family spent in Mexico,

when her mother was given the drawing.

Could there be a fresh lead among the family photos

and cherished possessions?

Alice, I want to find out more about your mother, first of all.

This is her, I see. Yes, this is on their wedding day.

What a beauty she was. My goodness.

This was taken in Belgium,

and that is my mother and her identical twin sister,

and they both studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

Alice's mother, Suzanne Daco,

married her father, Paul Genachte, in 1939.

They then moved to Mexico City,

where they joined a vibrant expat community.

While Paul worked for a local power company,

Suzanne continued her artistic interests.

Is this something she did as a profession, then?

Basically, it was a hobby for her.

She didn't have a job, as such. She was just an artist.

Is this in Mexico?

That's when I was born, yes,

so that's my mother showing me to my sister.

My sister was four years older.

And what about the work your mum did?

This, I'm assuming, is one of hers, is it?

Yes, that's one of hers. This woodcut.

Suzanne Daco.

Yes, D-A-C-O.

Well, she clearly had talent, didn't she?

Yes. Did she exhibit at all, do you know?

She did do a one-woman show.

There's an article in this magazine.

In this? In Hoy.

"Today" in Spanish.

One of the top magazines

across the whole of the South American continent.

If you were going to compare it to something now,

it's not quite Time magazine, but it's not far off.

Yes.

Look at this, there's a whole page on her in here.

"Exposicion Daco."

So, Daco Exhibition.

This sheds new light on Alice's mother in Mexico.

She established herself as an artist of high calibre

and significant reputation.

Could this explain why Jimmy Heineman,

a colleague of Alice's father,

would have given her a valuable Rodin drawing,

in return for her work at the restaurant La Vie Parisienne?

We've got a number of options, haven't we?

Either Heineman gave it to your mother

because he knew she was an artist

and she was the kind of woman who would appreciate it.

Yes. Or it's not a genuine Rodin.

Oh, I do think it is.

And so he just gave it to her as a lovely drawing

and the family folklore has become that it's a Rodin.

Whichever of those options it is, the answer is in there somewhere.

Yes. And where we need to look first is at Jimmy Heineman

and find out more about him,

because at the moment, he is the big mystery.

I've learned something potentially very significant today.

Alice's mother was clearly a much more serious artist

than it first appeared.

She had at least one exhibition - I would assume more than one -

and was an artist of some renown.

But who was Jimmy Heineman? I haven't learned much about him.

And he is the key to unlocking this mystery.

Encouraged by what I've discovered at Alice's house,

I'm heading back, to catch up with Bendor and Philip,

who thinks he's discovered some significant stylistic similarities

between Alice's drawing and one of Rodin's most famous works.

The more I think about it,

there's a real chance that we can connect Alice's drawing to Rodin,

to the great artist himself.

And it may not be obvious,

but I can see a real link between Alice's drawing, a watercolour,

and one of the great works by Rodin, The Thinker.

You see, they both have that single idea of crystallising a gesture

in an original and dynamic way, in order to say more about the subject,

about the happening. In the case of the drawing, it's about dance,

it's about whirling movement.

In the case of The Thinker, of course, it's about contemplation.

It's about thought.

The thing that's worried me from the beginning,

I have to admit, is the idea that

Alice's mother would be given a genuine Rodin

as a casual gift, in return for, you know,

doing a bit of painting in a restaurant.

It doesn't feel quite right to me.

We have to be careful with Rodin, because he was massively faked,

not just his drawings, but his sculptures, as well.

Rodin's drawings were faked almost as soon as he was dead.

Here's one which is by Odilon Roche,

who was a contemporary of Rodin's and an amateur artist.

And he was getting fake Rodin drawings

into really quite well-respected exhibitions

just months after Rodin died.

Roche's drawings were stamped with a little gallery stamp, OR,

at the bottom right-hand corner.

And actually, for years afterwards,

that stamp was taken as a sign of authenticity,

even though they were on fake drawings.

Although one of the earliest-known fakers of Rodin's work,

Odilon Roche concentrated on forging a different aspect

of the French artist's output.

His studies of nudes.

So, I believe, as far as Alice's picture is concerned,

we can rule out Roche as a suspect.

But we need to be very wary of other fakers who specialised in drawings

of the Cambodian dancers.

I mean, it just shows what paramount importance it is to actually get

a provenance for this, to link this drawing,

to link Alice's mother, back to Rodin.

Well, key also is finding out who was Jimmy Heineman?

The man who, as far as Alice is concerned,

gave the drawing to her mother.

And I came across this photograph of Jimmy Heineman.

There he is with his wife in the 1940s, in Mexico.

So, it places him certainly, at least, in the right country.

And he was a very successful

and very influential businessman in Mexico City.

So, is he the kind of man who could have afforded a Rodin?

I would say yes. And I've done a bit of work,

trying to find out more about the restaurant,

La Vie Parisienne, and of all things,

I've found a reference to it in a novel by Jack Kerouac,

the famous beat author.

And he writes, "La Vie Parisienne, I picture it,

"a restaurant in Mexico City.

"I go in, order a good white Bordeaux and a filet mignon.

"For dessert, pastries and strong coffee and a cigar."

Lovely. Well, I think I can very conveniently confirm the restaurant

did a good line in steaks, because I've got a menu here.

Wow! Have a look at that, see if anything grabs your fancy.

I like the artistic front cover.

And in fact, it seems that this was quite an artistic restaurant,

because we've got an advert here from an exhibition they put on

of the leading Mexican artist Maria Izquierdo.

It's a very romantic thought, isn't it?

This bubble of artistic chic in Mexico.

And could it be that, in that milieu,

this drawing passed from one pair of hands to another?

To gather vital information for the investigation, we've come to Paris,

where there is a museum dedicated entirely to Auguste Rodin.

Could Alice's picture be part of one of his most

remarkable sequences of work? It was here in Paris, in 1906,

that Rodin first encountered the Cambodian dancers.

They travelled to the French capital with their king, Sisowath.

This was a celebrated royal visit,

an historic cultural event,

and commemorated ties between the two countries.

Could Alice's pictures show one of the magical dancers

that captured Rodin's imagination?

To find out more, I've arranged to meet Veronique Mattiussi,

archivist at the Musee Rodin.

Let's look at these pictures here. This is from a magazine of the time.

And this is Rodin, drawing the dancers here.

On 10 July 1906, Rodin went to the Pre Catelan Theatre,

where he watched the dancers perform live for the first time.

The very next day, he began drawing them.

Was he drawing them as they were dancing,

or did he ask them to stop and pose? Ah, non.

Rodin's fascination with the Cambodian dancers

has been dubbed his final passion,

just a decade before the French master died.

He was interviewed a lot in the papers, so this is from Le Figaro.

This is 1906. This is at the time.

"So, for me, I feel that by looking at them, my vision has expanded,

"I look higher and further and, finally, I have learned."

When the dancers went to perform in Marseille,

Rodin was in such a rush to follow them

that he forgot his drawing paper.

This could be an intriguing lead,

so I'm keen to find out exactly what type of paper

was used for Alice's picture.

So this frantic concentration of activity

to produce 150 sketches and drawings was probably in two cities.

And he must have just drawn and drawn and drawn

and, of course, so quickly.

What we've got is evidence of the impact of the Cambodian dancers

on Rodin in his twilight years.

I mean, there was a thunderbolt, but nonetheless,

it created this lasting emotion in him.

He'd never seen anything like these dancers before.

And he suddenly felt this was something new for him,

something new that he could learn,

and produce this incredibly intense bout of activity.

It's clear to me now that Rodin was mesmerised by the Cambodian dancers

and that's why he produced so many drawings in such a short time.

Meanwhile, I have a rare opportunity to take a closer look

at a prized collection of genuine Rodin sketches of Cambodian dancers,

with curator Sophie Biass-Fabiani.

Can I spot any stylistic clues

that could help prove that Alice's picture

was created by the same hand?

What do you think of Rodin's Cambodian works?

All the Cambodian are outstanding.

This is a special, divine moment, I would say.

He's gifted, and he's using it and...

it's just a pleasure to see it.

One of the things I notice,

and it reminds me of the drawing we're researching,

is these very diluted watercolours.

They're almost like blots, aren't they, rather than strokes?

Yes, and he's using it to have accidents in some way.

He's trying to cause accidents.

I mean, this is what's so fascinating

about this whole process, these drawings.

Here you have too much water. That's using the accident.

He's just doing the same thing in sculpture, also.

This is really encouraging.

Sophie has confirmed that this particular use of watercolour,

which I'd spotted on Alice's drawing,

is, in fact, a recognised technique of Rodin's.

But because these pictures are so simply constructed,

with only a few strokes of paint and pencil,

we need to be sure we fully understand his overall style.

What are the characteristics of these Cambodian dancers?

Well, it's a lightness,

making figures completely floating, without gravity.

That's really what dance is about, you know, defying gravity,

and he's defying gravity in his drawing.

And you can see that there's no ground.

He's not interested in the details.

The faces are always very simply done.

Here, you don't even have a nose or the eyes, you know.

And one of the other characteristics is the slightly contorted way

in which the hands are expressed

and these rather attenuated,

elongated arms.

Well, that's what I guess caught him,

interested him.

This way of being round, whatever happens.

It is a little exaggerated, maybe.

I'm encouraged by what I've seen of these Cambodian dancers

and what I've learned about Rodin's distinctive way

of using watercolour.

If Alice's picture isn't genuine,

then we would have to be dealing with

an exceptionally skilful forger.

Meanwhile, Bendor is finding the provenance trail

particularly difficult.

There's no sign of the picture in any art sales in Europe,

so if the drawing was given to Alice's mother by Jimmy Heineman

sometime in the 1940s, just when and where did he buy it?

Alice has told us her mother was given this drawing

by someone called Jimmy Heineman,

so the question is

whether we can link Heineman to any Rodin sales or exhibitions

in the first half of the 20th century.

By the outbreak of the Second World War,

Jimmy Heineman's family had properties and businesses

on the east coast of the United States.

So, I'm going to see if there's any record of a Heineman

buying Alice's picture at a sale there, in this timeframe.

There's a series of exhibitions and sales

on the East Coast of the United States in the 1930s.

There's a notice in the Washington Post.

"Collection of Rodin drawings has been loaned

"by the distinguished sculptor Professor Ernest Durig,

"Rodin's last pupil,"

"to whom the drawings were given in 1911, as a token of friendship.

"Professor Durig will be present at the exhibition,

"and will explain the artistic value of the collection."

There's a reference here, in the New Yorker magazine,

to another exhibition of Rodin drawings.

In fact, they're also from Professor Ernest Durig.

That's in 1937.

Four of those drawings are sold at auction in 1937 in New York.

This could be an important new lead for the investigation.

Ernest Durig claimed to have been a pupil of Rodin's

and was selling his works in the States.

So, could Alice's drawing have been bought from Durig

at one of these sales?

Back in Paris, I've arranged a surprise for Alice.

We're watching a traditional Cambodian dancer in a tiny theatre,

to see if we can find any evidence that Alice's picture was drawn

directly from a live performance.

We've been in touch with the prestigious Royal Cambodian Ballet,

a celebrated group that still performs

this centuries-old tradition today.

And their top dancer has agreed to put on a special display for us.

Her hands. It does. And the feet. And the feet.

By watching her dance,

can Alice and I identify whether her picture resembles the elegant moves

that inspired the artist?

THEY APPLAUD

Watching you, the thing we were so drawn to

was the movement of your hands,

especially because you bend your hands, my goodness,

I can't believe how you do that.

What we were thinking is, if this is a genuine Rodin,

we would hope that the movement

bears a strong resemblance to a dance, to reality.

Do you look at that and think, "Yes, I recognise that"?

Yes, I recognise.

We can see that's a classical dance.

If you were going to recreate this pose here, the top half anyway,

what would that look like? It would look like this.

Brilliant bit of foreshortening. Head just slightly tilted.

This would have been done so quickly.

Yes. If you think about it.

You're dancing, Rodin is drawing. I mean, this is a matter of seconds.

And I suppose by the time he's finished putting pencil on paper,

the dance will have changed.

So perhaps he's combining several movements.

Does this position... does it have a name?

We tell, "Khbat".

Khbat. Khbat.

And how many different positions are there?

There are lots. I don't remember exactly, but maybe more than 2,000.

Really? Yes.

I mean, this Khbat, as you call it, does it have a meaning?

Yes, some Khbat have meaning.

Like this is...

smile. How lovely.

It's just... It's so graceful.

It's so elegant to see you do that.

I mean, I'm encouraged.

And certainly having seen you dance and seeing this,

it just makes us realise so much what Rodin,

if this is indeed by Rodin... Why he was so enthralled.

Why he was so enthralled and what he was seeing.

This is really encouraging.

The dancer believes the hands in Alice's picture

do indeed match the traditional Cambodian dance,

which she's studied all her life.

Meanwhile, Bendor has been attempting to find evidence

that Jimmy Heineman, who gave Alice's mother her drawing,

bought pictures at art sales in the States.

And he's made a surprising discovery about the man

who hosted some of them.

I've been trying to make a link between Jimmy Heineman

and these exhibitions of Rodin drawings

on the east coast of the United States in the 1930s.

I'm afraid I can't, because no catalogue was published.

However, I have found out a few rather alarming things

about the host of those sales.

It turns out he was, basically, a bit of a fantasist.

Born Ernst Durig, in Switzerland in 1894,

Durig was an aspiring sculptor and, throughout his life,

he claimed to have been Rodin's last-ever student.

But we can find no evidence to back this up.

And I've discovered that Durig would frequently show this photograph

of him and Rodin together as proof of their friendship.

Taken in Rome in 1915, it's the only record of the two men ever meeting.

Durig, perhaps trading on that claim,

secured some important portrait commissions.

I've got here, for example, a rather nice photo of him

standing next to his bust of the then-President, Harry S Truman.

Durig was a well-regarded sculptor in his own right.

But after his death in 1962,

it was found he had also been

a highly accomplished, and prolific, forger.

After he died, they discovered a cache of fake Rodin drawings,

including a large number of Cambodian dancers.

This is obviously extremely alarming

and I think the first thing we have to do

is go and see some of these Durig fakes

and see if they bear any resemblance to Alice's picture.

This is a worrying development.

Ernst Durig duped many in the art world.

Could he also be responsible for Alice's picture?

But I'm still on the trail of Jimmy Heineman,

the man who gave the picture to Alice's mother.

I've made contact with one of his relatives, his daughter, Marilyn,

in New York.

'Can I find any evidence that he was a serious art collector,

'the type of man who would have bought a genuine Rodin?'

I wanted to hear more about your father, Marilyn.

Was he a collector of any kind?

Yes, we had quite a bit of art in the apartment,

in the house where I was a child growing up,

but I can't say for certain who the artists were.

There was rather an eclectic mix.

He owned what my parents used to refer to as a fake Bruegel,

because it wasn't really, but it looked very Bruegel-ish.

And he at one point... There were, um,

monkeys who were painting pictures at the Central Park Zoo,

and so my father owned some monkey art.

Hang on a minute!

So he owned a fake Bruegel, I'm not massively encouraged by that,

I've got to be honest. And then he owned monkey art?

Yes. Monkey art.

And then, he might have owned a Rodin.

It's a pretty eclectic mixture, if he did.

Yes, I'm quite sure he was very eclectic in his tastes.

'This doesn't sound too promising.

'But I wonder if Marilyn has any evidence which connects her father

'directly to Alice's family.'

After you all contacted me,

I went into a cabinet and found an old photo album of my father's.

There were photographs taken of friends in Mexico City,

and one of them was my father and Paul, so...

Oh, Alice's father. Yes.

So this is the first visual evidence

that connects Jimmy Heineman to Alice's family.

And here he is with her father, Paul Genachte, in Mexico.

Well, that was interesting. That was very interesting.

Marilyn has confirmed certain things for us,

which has been really useful,

so her dad, Jimmy, was in Mexico City at the right time,

he did know Alice's father. There's a photograph of them together.

When it comes to his art collection, that's not quite so promising.

I mean, I'm wondering if,

as well as his fake Bruegel, did he have a fake Rodin

and that's what he gave to Alice's mum?

Meanwhile, back in Paris,

I'm taking Alice's picture for some forensic analysis.

Having spent 25 years restoring Rodin's drawings,

can conservator Claude Laroque identify any clues from the paper

which could prove that the drawing is genuine?

When you look at Rodin drawings,

how do you analyse a piece of paper like this?

First of all, you have to look

if it's a machine-made paper or handmade paper.

So, for example, this paper is a machine-made paper.

How can you tell that? How it looks like.

In the second part of the 19th century and in the 20th century,

most of the paper is machine-made.

And Claude has confirmed that Alice's drawing

was produced on machine-made paper, too.

But is there anything distinctive that could link it to Rodin himself?

Sometimes, do you get watermarks on Rodin watercolours?

Yes, yes. Some imprint of the papermaker.

A watermark is an indication from the manufacturer.

Unfortunately on this paper, we don't have anything.

That's frustrating.

With no watermark,

there's no way of proving exactly where this paper came from.

It seems that, for once,

forensic science can't help us in this investigation.

But can Claude, from her years of experience,

spot anything that would suggest Alice's drawing is a fake?

As far as the research we've done,

I can't find anything specifically about this drawing

that we would not expect to find in a Rodin drawing.

No.

Well, sometimes I have seen some fakes.

Well, just look at it and say,

"No, it's absolutely not from Rodin's hands."

But some fakes can be done in a very good way.

I was hoping that, with the help of Claude,

we could find some clues in Alice's drawing

that could link us firmly to the great master.

But it seems that we can't.

Although she did leave us with an interesting thought.

If it is a fake, it's a good one.

I'm worried that the lack of any solid forensic evidence

for Alice's picture

makes it harder to prove it's a genuine work and not a clever fake.

And what's worse, I've received a worrying tip-off

about a forgery scandal

which has recently shaken the French art world.

In 2014, France's premier national art gallery, the Musee d'Orsay,

invited a leading expert to study their collection of Rodin drawings.

And she concluded that many were fakes.

You can't really overstate the impact of this discovery.

Imagine, fakes at the heart of the French art establishment.

Not just anywhere, but in there, in the Musee d'Orsay,

one of the best-known museums, not just in France, but in the world.

Imagine what they felt when they read this document,

which I've managed to get hold of.

This is what lifted the lid on the scandal

and the Musee d'Orsay has given me three fakes from their collection.

I'm going to break the news to Alice,

show her the fakes and see if they bear any resemblance to her drawing.

The forgeries duped experts for generations.

And a number of the fakers have been identified.

What's particularly concerning is that one of the known culprits

is Ernst Durig,

the man Bendor discovered selling Rodin fakes in America

before Alice's mother was given her picture.

How does Alice's drawing compare to his forgeries?

So, here we have the rogues' gallery.

Let's start with this one.

Now this is a work by the man who claimed to be

Rodin's last pupil, Ernest Durig.

And he has done a copy here of a Cambodian dancer.

He was producing these drawings primarily in the 1920s, 1930s.

This picture by Ernst Durig

is the first fake Cambodian dancer we've discovered.

And it's alarming that it lay undetected in the Musee d'Orsay

until so recently.

So, what do you think, in terms of making a comparison between the two?

That seems much more static, much more contrived.

But they took that as being genuine.

This was thought to be genuine.

Durig copied Rodin's drawings across the spectrum, if you like.

These were all in the Musee d'Orsay

and, until 2014, they were thought to be genuine.

The art establishment has known about Durig

since he was first exposed in the 1960s.

But no-one imagined his fakes would still be conning people today.

So now, when you look at your drawing,

and you realise the extent of the fakery,

and also how recently this has come to light...

If I had come with my drawing a year ago,

I'd have been very different.

You could have snuck it in under the wire. Snuck it in!

"Hello! Here's my genuine Rodin."

I was utterly amazed, I didn't realise he was so faked

and that there was such a story behind the Rodin watercolours,

the works of art. And it's just like,

where do you start to separate what's true

from what's not true, what's a fake?

I just didn't realise there was so much behind the scenes.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked.

The emergence of Ernst Durig,

whose forgeries duped the Musee d'Orsay for so long,

is a major concern for Alice.

The drawing her mother cherished for so many years,

could it be a Durig fake?

Meanwhile, I've come to New York, for the annual Old Master sales,

and, while I'm in town on business,

I want to follow up a new lead on the forger, Ernst Durig.

At the prestigious Museum of Modern Art,

there are over 150 drawings by Durig.

These were donated to this respected institution after he died,

and this collection contains several images of fake Cambodian dancers.

This is the most important series of Durig works in existence.

And if Alice's picture is by Durig,

then we really need to compare it to this cache of fakes at MoMA.

We've been negotiating with the museum,

trying to get access to that unique file of information

that proves that Durig was a faker of Rodin

and also of his Cambodian drawings.

Now, if we CAN get access to that,

we may be able to prove what Alice's drawing is.

Is it a work by the faker?

In which case, it's worth, I don't know, a couple of hundred pounds.

But could we, though, prove it was by Rodin?

?100,000.

But after several discussions, MoMA turned our approaches down.

They said they would be happy to talk about Rodin,

but not about Durig.

MoMA's refusal to let us study their Durig collection is a setback.

But there's one final piece of evidence we can investigate.

Back in London, Alice and I are taking her picture

to the country's leading signature analyst.

Adam Brand is often called as an expert witness in court cases,

to assess whether a document has been faked.

Can he identify whether it was the French master himself

who signed Alice's drawing?

He's been studying Rodin's genuine signature

on some of his authentic pictures.

Adam, tell us what we're looking at here.

You're trying to find unique peculiarities that,

in combination, are likely to be only found with one author.

The key thing about Rodin is the fact his writing is very connected

and the beginning tends to taper in.

Then it goes to a covering stroke there.

Do you see the fact he could've stopped there?

Well, he doesn't. And it pushes down into the lower zone.

He starts his R with an up stroke, rather than a down stroke.

He has a slight loop in the O.

He opens up his D, he gives a loop here.

And it's very connected. And the finish is clear.

And then he has an underlining paraph.

So can Adam spot any of these distinct characteristics

in the signature on Alice's picture?

The beginnings of signatures, and the ends of signatures,

are very important. Now, you're not getting that smooth entry,

you're getting a nick.

And you get to this O.

The difficulty with this O is the fact it doesn't give you a loop.

It hasn't got the clarity that you get from Rodin,

which is going round like that

and the little open top going off to that direction.

It's very odd.

And this, what worries me about this,

is that the D has totally disappeared.

But at the end, you have an issue here.

What you've got is quite a weak finish.

Most of Rodin's known signatures have quite a strong finish.

They finish with a certain amount of definiteness.

With gusto. With gusto.

Interestingly, this signature is not weak all the way through,

because then suddenly you get a finishing paraph, this underlining,

which, again, becomes very strong.

So one can't say, "Oh, well, he was feeling tired,"

because suddenly he picks up the energy again.

Now, that energy should be in there - and it isn't.

On your assessment, Adam, could that signature be by Rodin?

I would be slightly doubtful that it is a Rodin signature, I'm sorry.

No.

Interesting. Are you ever wrong? Yeah.

Could you be? Yeah. Oh, am...? Am I ever wrong? Yes.

With Adam doubting the authenticity of the signature on Alice's drawing,

it's now time to regroup and catch up with Bendor,

who has some news on the forger, Ernst Durig.

I've been having another look into Ernst Durig's life

and I found some newspaper reports and photographs

that shed some more light on his rather eccentric career.

Here he is on the left at the White House, next to Herbert Hoover,

and they're unveiling this really rather extraordinary

giant bust of George Washington.

I mean, that is a monster. Nasty thing.

Quite how Durig ever thought he could get away with his claim

he was a pupil of Rodin's and then make sculptures quite that bad,

I don't know. He was evicted from his home rather brutally,

which is rather tragic.

Eventually, he ended up, rather sadly, in an asylum.

He died in 1962.

But it was only after his death that he was revealed to be

a prolific forger of Rodin's drawings.

Talking of forgers,

I was a bit disheartened with the signature analysis we did

of Alice's picture. So I rang the Musee Rodin,

to see what else I could find to try and bolster our case

and they told me, when he gave drawings to his friends,

he didn't generally bother to sign them.

If they wanted them signed, and asked him to do so, he would say,

you know, he couldn't be bothered,

and get them to copy a signature themselves.

So, we're left with a situation,

which I can hardly bear to contemplate,

where you might have a genuine Rodin and a fake signature.

With this news about Rodin's signatures,

how do Durig's fake Cambodian dancers compare,

when held up against Alice's picture?

Obviously, there is so much to play for here,

but I've managed to dig out from Baltimore Museum Of Art two fakes,

two proper fakes, established works by Durig.

And I think it's fascinating, when you look at these

and you keep Alice's drawing in mind,

there's a sort of boneless, flaccid quality in the way they're done.

I mean, look at that arm there on the left,

with those sort of banana leaf-like fingers.

There's a sort of lack of anatomical authority.

And look at the woman on the right.

Look at the characterisation.

She's overly sexualised.

She doesn't look like a Cambodian dancer.

And then, when you put both of them next to Alice's drawing,

I don't know what you feel, but there's a dynamism.

When Alice's drawing popped up in between those two there,

it felt immediately like someone had turned the music on,

because that feels to me more convincingly

like someone who is actually doing a dance,

whereas the two Durigs on the left and right feel terribly forced,

composed like little sort of stiff mannequins

that someone has tried to bring to life, but failed.

Philip and Bendor

don't think Alice's picture looks like a Durig forgery.

But having exhausted the scientific and provenance research,

there's only one course of action left.

There is no other way to judge this picture now,

other than stylistically.

And there's one woman who has spent more time

studying Rodin drawings than anybody else.

But not only those. The fakes, as well.

The dark, as well as the light.

We need her to examine Alice's picture and give us her views.

It was Christina Buley who uncovered the recent

fake scandal at the Musee d'Orsay

and it's her verdict that the art market will look to.

It's vital she studies Alice's picture,

to determine if, indeed, it is a genuine and undiscovered work

by Rodin.

She could be our last hope in cracking this case.

Before she examines the picture in the flesh,

can she tell us what clues will sway her decision?

Usually when we get to this stage, where we have someone like you

look at the drawing, we would have built a strong case for

our painting or drawing with the provenance

and we just haven't been able to do it with this one.

So, it all comes down to you

and your stylistic assessment of the drawing.

How confident can you be that you'll be right?

There are more than 7,000 drawings and I have had the chance to study

those drawings for nine years, when I was working at the Musee Rodin.

And I have come across many, many fakes.

So, when you are trying to determine

whether a Rodin drawing is authentic,

what sort of traits, what sort of characteristics are you looking for?

Well, you're looking for a very fluid line.

From the top to the bottom.

And even, in the Cambodian series,

you would find the "ligne du nu", as Rodin would say.

The line of the nude, yeah. The line of the nude through the costume.

This is encouraging.

But has Christina spotted any of these distinctive traits

in Alice's picture?

Christina, I know you've not seen the drawing in the flesh,

but you've seen some images of it. What are your first impressions?

Well, I would say there are some very good elements in this drawing,

for example the costume, the watercolour, the monochrome.

That is very typical of Rodin.

And the simplification and also the black crayon on the costume.

That is quite Rodin-esque.

Is there anything that struck you in these images that you thought,

"Hmm, not so sure"? Well,

I find that the general aspect of the Cambodian dancer is a bit clumsy

and, in many fakes,

the feet and the arms and the head

seem to be combined around a general body and the costume.

Now, for the first time,

Christina will carefully study the original picture itself.

It's hard to know which way Christina is going to go.

But, for Alice, it's hugely important

that this drawing is genuine.

It's such an important part of her family history.

Her mother painstakingly and carefully looked after this picture

for years. Alice knows all about that.

And so, if the drawing isn't genuine, it means that

that was all for nothing

and that story doesn't really have any meaning any more.

And I think that would be really disappointing.

Christina has got a really tricky job.

There's no science to fall back upon.

There's no provenance either.

She's just got to use one thing and one thing only - her eye.

What's for sure is that, whatever the outcome,

this is a very close call.

To make her decision, Christina needs to return to France,

to compare her notes on Alice's picture

with her previous investigations into Rodin's Cambodian dancers.

Four weeks later, Christina sends a letter to the gallery,

so we've called Alice back to hear the official verdict on her picture.

Hi, Alice. Hello, Alice. Hello. Are you ready for this?

Yes. As ready as I'll ever be.

We've received a letter from Christina Buley,

who is the world authority on Rodin drawings and who's looked at yours.

And her verdict is in this envelope.

How exciting.

And, Alice, it's...

it's really worth considering what we could be dealing with here,

if your drawing is proved to be right.

It would be a very important addition

to the known body of works by Rodin on paper.

And, should it be proved conclusively right

to the satisfaction of the art world,

we could be talking about ?100,000.

Shall I open it? Please do.

OK.

Let's see what she has to say.

It starts... "After thoroughly studying the graphite

"and watercolour drawing of a Cambodian dancer

"you presented today, I am sorry to inform you...

"I do not recognise the hand of Auguste Rodin."

Oh, my goodness. Sorry, Alice.

No, that's fair enough.

SHE SIGHS

We...

As you know, it came down to the stylistic analysis of it.

Yes, yeah. And she clearly doesn't feel that it is by him.

Could it be...? Well, I suppose, then, it must be a fake.

Christina does believe she can identify the artist

responsible for Alice's picture.

She does say who she thinks it is by.

A renowned faker of Rodin's drawings -

Ernst Durig.

The man who claimed to be Rodin's last pupil

and who fooled the art world for decades.

I have to say, I am surprised by the assertion that it is Durig.

It still strikes me as too good,

too confident, to be by someone who was faking,

someone who didn't really feel that they were naturally doing

a depiction of a Cambodian dancer. I still really like it.

Well, the only thing I would say is

Christina has made it her life's work

studying all of Rodin's drawings and the fakes by Durig.

And she goes into some detail about why she thinks it isn't by Rodin.

And she feels that it has more of the distinctive...

what she calls the distinctive stylistic marks of Durig

and far fewer of those of Rodin. How interesting.

This is closure, in art world terms, I am afraid.

She is the person we go to.

Therefore, we have to live by her verdict.

So, the official verdict is the picture is by Durig.

This means that Jimmy Heineman bought a clever forgery,

which he would later give to Alice's mother.

I'm sure it was given to my mother in good faith, but the...

It could well have been,

because Durig was not outed as a faker at that time.

Yeah. So, Jimmy Heineman could have thought that

this was a genuine Rodin. Yeah.

I shall look at it slightly differently from now on.

But treasure it nonetheless, I hope. Oh, yes. And thank you so much.

It's just... I did want to know, so now I know.

Well, I'm sorry it wasn't the verdict we all would have wanted.

That's all right. It was never for the money.

It was just to find out...

where it came from.

It will still go on my wall, though.

Sometimes, regrettably, on Fake Or Fortune,

we have to overturn, rather than prove, family legends.

And with Alice's picture, the faker, Ernst Durig,

had us guessing till the last minute.

Well, I think Alice took that very well,

with her typical generosity of spirit.

And I hope it's of some comfort to her that we have, at least,

shed a light on an area of Rodin's work that is less known -

his drawings and, in particular, his drawings of Cambodian dancers.

It's just unfortunate that they have been so hugely faked and those fakes

have worked their way all around the world, even as far as Mexico City.

And, of course, it's a reminder, isn't it, how,

when one is dealing with a great international artist,

when the stakes are really high,

how quickly the world of fakery can follow?

And then when you're dealing with a really great faker,

someone who has studied their subject from the inside,

how soon the waters can then become muddied.

And how truth and deception can then be so difficult to tell apart.

If you think you have an undiscovered masterpiece,

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