Constable Fake or Fortune?

-At 42 million...

-The art world,

where paintings change hands for fortunes.

Sold. Thank you very much.

But for every known masterpiece,

there may be another still waiting to be discovered.

-This is it.

-International art dealer Philip 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.

-Ta-da!

-Oh, wow!

Every case is packed with surprise and intrigue.

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

But not every painting is quite what it seems.

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

-This is definitely by Paul Delaroche.

-Oh, my goodness.

..or bitter disappointment.

I can't cope with this roller-coaster.

What a nightmare.

In this episode, we're taking on one of the most important cases we've

ever faced. Can we prove that this beautiful English landscape is a

work of national importance?

-That's it!

-Yeah.

-There on the wall!

A lost masterpiece by John Constable and quite possibly an alternative

view of his greatest work,

The Hay Wain.

I feel I've just walked into the most famous landscape painting of

-all time.

-It's a journey that takes us from Constable country

to Los Angeles

on the trail of a painting with a colourful past.

I now know who owned your picture.

-Wow.

-You've got a name?

But with Constable the most forged artist of the 19th century,

are the odds stacked against us?

So two artists at work rather than one?

That sounds like a problem.

Every art dealer has a tale of a special picture that slipped through

their fingers, an artwork so important it should be hanging on

the walls of a world-class gallery.

So when I was a fledgling dealer in the mid-1990s,

I bought a picture which I thought might well be a sleeper,

an overlooked work by one of the greatest landscape painters who ever

lived - John Constable.

Well, that certainly is one of the most famous names in British art

history, that's for sure. But was it a bit of a long shot?

Well, I'm afraid the experts thought so.

Despite my best efforts, I failed to prove it,

so I was obliged to just sell it on and I've always regretted it.

Ever since then, the painting has been tucked away in the English

countryside. The present owner has been waiting for the right moment to

try to bring a lost Constable back into the light.

The whole art world has moved on.

We now know so much more about his techniques, his foibles,

the way he put his paintings together, and we've got digital

access in a way we never had before,

to ledgers and sales catalogues and provenance.

I see this as a cold case that we need to reopen.

We've come to take another look at the painting at the home of the

current owner, businessman Henry Reed.

-Hello, Henry.

-Hello, Philip. How are you?

-Nice to see you.

It's very good to see you.

Hi, Henry. Nice to meet you.

How do you do? Very nice to meet you.

-Come along in.

-Thank you.

Here's the picture and I hope you like it.

That is really lovely.

Well, I can see why it appeals to you, Henry.

And I can see why it caught your eye, because

that is one of the most famous scenes in British art.

Absolutely. This is Willy Lott's Cottage on the banks

of the River Stour in Suffolk.

This is the very same subject that Constable depicted in his most

famous painting - The Hay Wain.

The Hay Wain is Constable's most celebrated work.

It hangs in pride of place at the National Gallery in London

and is one of Britain's best-loved pictures.

Born in 1776,

John Constable was one of the leading lights of British landscape

painting. Famed for his idyllic pictures of the English countryside,

he was an innovator who captured the natural world with fresh vitality.

Painted in 1821,

The Hay Wain was the picture that made Constable's name

and I sold Henry the dream that this

unattributed work might be an alternative view of his

most famous landscape.

When did you buy the picture, Henry?

I bought the picture in 2000.

I bought it off Philip but I'd bought art off Philip before.

I really liked the painting. I thought it was fantastic.

It was a beautiful scene.

It was beautifully painted and I loved it.

-As simple as that.

-How much did you pay for it from Philip?

I paid 35,000, which is a lot of money.

For a painting you don't know if it's genuine or not?

Correct. Having said that, I had Philip's conviction behind me.

So no pressure on you, then?

Well, I had a conviction, a dream that it was...

that it was possibly right, and I got you to buy into that, didn't I,

-really?

-Yeah, very much so.

My history with the picture goes back to 1995,

when I was an up-and-coming art dealer,

trawling the sales for possible sleepers.

It was described as circle of John Constable in a very, very,

vague estimate of £2,000-£3,000.

I ended up buying it for £10,000

and tried to prove that it was right.

And I showed it to one of the leading experts.

He said no, and being a dealer,

I couldn't hang on to this for a very long time,

because art dealers can't afford just to

put money into a picture and then just hope and wait.

Five years later, I had another chance to buy the painting again

at double the cost. £20,000.

I then tried to prove it again.

And failed. And that's when Henry came into the picture.

So let me just get this straight, then.

You sold it to Henry here for £35,000,

which is quite a healthy profit margin.

Now you're trying to embarrass me.

Perish the thought!

And yet you thought there was enough in it, Henry?

Even though Philip had tried and failed twice at this point.

Certainly for me, it was a bet worth taking.

You could have bought a dud here.

I could have bought a dud, but if it wasn't a dud,

then there's a significant upside.

Well, what would that upside be, then, Philip,

if this is indeed John Constable, what would this be worth?

As an authentic sketch by Constable,

I could see it making in excess of £2 million.

Did you know that, Henry?

No. Not at all.

That's an extraordinary sum.

It's a very, very, very large sum.

If it proves to be genuine.

It's been almost 20 years since I let this picture go.

Did I make the right or wrong decision?

Seeing this picture again,

I get the same jolt of excitement which I did when I first saw it.

This looks like a Constable.

This has all the classic ingredients which he's famous for

with The Hay Wain and other pictures.

I mean, you've got Willy Lott's Cottage.

You've got the cart crossing the river and you've got that expressive

English-weather sky.

The scudding clouds.

My feeling is that this is Constable producing a picture heading towards

The Hay Wain. Why not?

If this painting does turn out to be Constable,

it is potentially such an important work.

What do you think you might do with it?

I think the public has to see it

if it is deemed, indeed, important enough to be exhibited.

Obviously we have to wait until we see whether it's real.

To be honest, I thought long and hard before taking this on,

because I could be wrong.

And there were some very senior experts who disagreed with me.

The Constable experts who viewed the painting in the late 1990s found

elements of the picture unconvincing and even crude.

It had never appeared in any official inventory of Constable's

work and had little in the way of provenance.

But with many new avenues of research open to us,

I think the time is right to uncover the truth about this painting

once and for all.

I think Henry's picture deserves one last chance,

a final big push to try and prove that it could be a lost piece of British art history.

It's my theory that it's an alternative view of the scene

depicted in The Hay Wain,

so I'm heading to the place that inspired it in search of evidence -

Constable country in Suffolk.

Constable grew up in the Stour Valley, where his father was a

prosperous corn merchant.

The family's watermill at Flatford still survives,

faithfully preserved by the National Trust.

Constable's journey from aspiring artist to celebrated landscape

painter was long and arduous.

It took many years for him to be recognised.

When success finally came, well into his 40s,

Constable said he owed it to his careless boyhood and all that lies

on the banks of the Stour.

This was his training ground.

"These scenes made me a painter," he said.

None more so than this idyllic view.

I feel I've just walked into the most famous landscape painting

of all time.

I mean, the question is -

why and how is it so powerful?

You know, what did Constable do in order to make this so enduring,

the most popular landscape,

the most popular painting, for many people, ever done?

I mean, the sky, the sky is so astonishing.

It's half the picture.

I mean, look at the scale of it.

He really knew what clouds were.

And then your eye goes down to the middle of the river,

to the hay cart, to the hay wain.

And in it, two people are discussing something.

But one arm is then pointed outwards towards...

towards Willy Lott's Cottage,

this wonderful sort of dwelling in the middle of the countryside,

enfolded by nature and by these trees.

The wonderful bush of elderflower,

that's in flower now and was in flower when he painted it in this picture.

I mean, that is the authority of an eyewitness account.

This is someone who's been here, who's grown up here.

Constable said that painting is another word for feeling.

And there's a sense of authenticity.

It's a portrait of Constable himself, of his childhood,

of all these things around here that he'd encountered, that he'd studied,

that he'd collected with his eye.

And it's amalgamated in this epic composition.

And to think Henry's picture could be part of the genesis

of this great work.

Constable sketched the home of tenant farmer Willy Lott from many

different angles before he settled on the scene depicted in The Hay Wain.

I'm meeting Simon Peachey from the National Trust,

who is going to show me the various views so I can establish whether

Henry's picture might be one of them.

How about over here, because I can see that there is a

very clear view of the river,

so what about the view from this angle?

Well, I'm not convinced.

The view in front of us is, I think,

the one that inspired The Mill Stream.

You can see the view matches very well Constable's painting.

You've got the house on the left and you've got the wall on the right and

you've got the lovely view through the trees in the centre there.

Well, we're in the wrong place, so whereabouts now?

-Round the corner?

-I think if we go round the corner...

Round here.

Oh, so this is distinctly Willy Lott's Cottage from the side.

You've got the chimney breast,

except it feels as though we've gone round a little bit too far.

It's slightly skewed from here, isn't it?

I agree with you and actually the view that it reminds me of is this

one, which is The Valley Farm, 1816.

Another masterpiece of Willy Lott's Cottage.

Absolutely.

But can we find the view that is depicted in Henry's painting?

So presumably, it could be somewhere along this wall here.

Yeah.

Actually, this angle of the architecture is much more convincing, isn't it?

I think it is, cos if you look at the gable end of the house,

it's just in the right position, isn't it?

And actually, you've got the wall as well at the right angle.

I think this is it.

And to top off the scene,

Simon can add one of Constable's trademark touches, a flash of red.

I think that completes the picture.

So we've found that the view depicted in Henry's picture does

indeed match up with one at Flatford Mill.

But what about the provenance of Henry's picture - its previous owners?

I'm looking for clues on the back of the canvas and there's an intriguing

label. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

So this would suggest that this painting was exhibited or loaned

to this museum in LA as a Constable,

and we've got a potential owner here.

Mr and Mrs Leigh Battson.

Who are you?

With our most promising provenance leads pointing to America,

I've come to Los Angeles on the hunt for information about the last known

owners of Henry's picture.

I'm heading to the Getty Research Institute,

which is the place to come if

you need to track down the origins of a mysterious work of art.

It's a fortress of knowledge,

it contains extensive archives dating back to the Middle Ages.

The whole place is protected against earthquake and fire so that the

material held here is preserved for future generations.

I've asked for the help of Julia Armstrong-Totten,

one of the world's leading experts in provenance research.

She helped create the Getty's Collectors Files,

20,000 folders of information about the world's art dealers,

museums and collectors, and there's one on Lucy and Leigh Battson.

-Right, Julia, let's have a look in this file. I'm dying to see.

-OK.

So this is Lucy Smith Doheny Battson.

Lucy was a matriarch of a very famous family here in Southern California,

the Doheny family.

They made their fortune in oil and her late father-in-law was one

of the wealthiest men, if not the wealthiest man, in America...

-Wow!

-..in their day.

And presumably very well known, were they?

They were. In fact, if you drive around, you'll see Doheny Drive,

you'll see Doheny Beach, and so Lucy and her husband Ned

built this mansion in Beverly Hills

called Greystone Mansion.

-Wow! Look at that.

-Yeah, it's pretty spectacular, isn't it?

It was considered probably the most beautiful and one of the largest

estates built in California at the time.

So this was a stupendously wealthy family by any standards?

Incredibly wealthy. Incredibly wealthy.

But they weren't without scandal.

As you can see here.

"Doheny Jr Murdered!"

"Crazed Secretary Kills Millionaire And Himself."

Lucy's husband and the secretary both ended up dead.

We don't really know the details today.

There is, you know, a lot of questions about what actually happened.

Within a couple of years, though,

Lucy remarried, and she married a gentleman called Leigh Battson

who was also involved in oil, and together,

they formed a wonderful collection of paintings and you can see some

-examples here.

-So we've got Canaletto, Pissarro, Monet,

so this is a serious art collection of the great names.

Some of the greats, exactly.

After Lucy died aged 100, in 1993, there was a sale,

there was an auction and this is part of what was auctioned off.

Right. And is Henry's picture in this sale?

No, it wasn't.

Hang on. Just get out of my bag...

I've got this label here.

with Mr and Mrs Leigh Battson.

-Right.

-So this would suggest that they did own it.

It does, and in fact,

I think this is probably some kind of a loan exhibition label.

So the question is - did the LA County Museum display

Henry's picture as a Constable, loud and proud, perhaps in an exhibition,

or did they have doubts about it themselves?

Back in London, I've asked Henry to dig out any new evidence he's got

that might help earn the painting another hearing.

In 2002,

a pencil sketch depicting the same scene as Henry's picture came up for

auction, so he snapped it up for £9,500.

It's so good to see this.

It's a 100% accepted authentic work by John Constable

and it seems to show

a large proportion of the content of your painting, doesn't it?

It seems to, yes.

I mean, we have the horse and cart,

we've got the mill stream

with the reflections in it.

We have a tree here in the same position.

There are many, many parallels.

It unquestionably relates.

The only frustrating thing about this drawing is

it doesn't show your complete composition,

the right-hand side is missing,

as it were. And what I'd love to do is take this to one of the Constable

experts and really get to grips with it, try and understand it further.

I'm heading to the Victoria & Albert Museum,

which holds an unrivalled collection of Constable's works,

from finished paintings to preliminary sketches

left in his studio after his death.

My theory is that Henry's picture could be one of these sketches,

a loosely painted working draft of Willy Lott's Cottage.

I've arranged to meet Annie Lyles,

one of the world's top Constable scholars.

She's one of the experts that we'll have to convince to have any chance

of proving that Henry's picture is genuine, and she is well acquainted

with all the known versions of Willy Lott's Cottage.

You know, I just love this picture.

It's so wild and passionate and fluent.

And to think, this is a six-foot full-size sketch

for the famous Hay Wain.

And dare I say it, I almost prefer it.

If I'm really honest, I think I prefer it, because, well, you see

Constable's creative processes at work,

but it is part of the process and it wasn't designed to be seen in his

-own day.

-I feel it almost...

It's like Constable having let his guard down.

You get to know him as an artist.

One of the things that excited me about Henry's picture,

which I could see here, is that sort of almost slightly, though,

out-of-control quality.

Yes, I mean, it seems so fresh and natural that people tend to assume

that it was painted in the open air.

But it wasn't. It was made in the studio,

probably over a period of months, between 1820 and 1821, and for it,

Constable relied on material that he had painted ten years earlier.

The seeds of The Hay Wain can clearly be seen in a series of small

sketches Constable painted while he was in Suffolk.

He didn't paint these and think,

"This will become The Hay Wain one day."

He was simply note taking, he was making sketches in the open air,

because, of course, by the early '20s,

when he was painting The Hay Wain proper,

he was in London in his studio,

marriage, children and so on,

so he no longer had the scenes in front of him.

So these were like his storehouse of images,

his memories, as it were, of his time in Suffolk, which then,

in London, he could conjure into pictures.

I can't help noticing the trotting sheepdog that starts in 1810 and

then bounces into the preparatory sketch,

and then makes it into the final famous Hay Wain.

I think Henry's picture could well have had its roots in

Constable's storehouse of images.

Several distinctive elements can also be found in genuine sketches

and drawings. The two-wheeled cart appears in several early sketches.

One of them fits the picture exactly.

The leaning figure in red,

it's a motif which can be found in other early works.

And most compelling,

Henry's authentic pencil drawing depicting the left-hand side

of his oil painting.

But will Annie Lyles buy into my theory?

There is clearly a direct relationship between this drawing

and your painting. But,

from my position of having seen so many works of this type

that are clever fakes,

I feel I have to point out that what these clever fakers often did

was to take classic Constable ingredients that they knew from

sketches and pictures, just like we've been discussing,

and to blend them in very cleverly into a composition that looks like

Constable. So it might be a fake-ist who is doing this and got access

to this drawing. You need to build more of a case, in my view -

proper, technical analysis, pigments, how it was constructed,

that aspect of the picture - and secondly,

you need to do more research into the picture's provenance.

It's clear Annie will take some convincing.

Back in LA, I'm on the trail of that label which suggests Henry's picture

was once loaned to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

I'm keen to know if it was ever exhibited at this prestigious museum

as a genuine Constable.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art does have a file on Henry's painting.

They won't allow us to film it but they have told Julia that Henry's

painting was exhibited here as a Constable, not once, but twice,

in 1967 and 1969.

So they believed in it, but then somewhere between that time

and 1995 when Philip bought it,

it fell off a cliff and stopped being a Constable.

So what we need to find out now is - when did it happen and why?

I'm hoping I can find out why Henry's picture appears to have been

unceremoniously discredited as a work by Constable.

Was there something about the painting itself that aroused suspicion?

I've sent it to the Hamilton Kerr Institute,

a specialist art research facility in Cambridge.

Sarah Cove, one of the world's leading authorities in Constable's

painting techniques,

has agreed to examine the painting in forensic detail.

As the founder of The Constable Research Project,

with 30 years' expertise,

she's examined hundreds of genuine works by the artist.

As well as countless fakes.

What will she make of Henry's picture?

Now, your response to this is very significant.

I think it's very interesting.

The thing that stands out to me immediately is the colour of the ground.

OK, so that's the layer beneath the paint, in the background,

shining through like a sort of negligee through a dress.

Yes, an artist would buy a canvas from an artists' colourman

with a white ground

and then they would potentially add another paint layer in a colour of

their choice. This is what I would call mushroom pink.

You can see it particularly clearly in these thin areas of the sky.

And dare I ask, is it the sort of thing you associate with our friend

-John Constable?

-Certainly this sort of mushroom pink shade is something

that he used, but I need to have a more detailed look.

OK, so this is encouraging, but give it to me straight,

I'm a grown-up art dealer.

Is there anything in here that worries you?

There is some brushwork in these trees in particular

that I'm not 100% convinced by.

It stands up from the surface and it

almost looks as if it's been stencilled on.

And you wouldn't normally expect to see anything like that in a work by

John Constable.

It doesn't seem right to me.

-That's a bit worrying.

-Yes, I'm a bit concerned about that.

Back in LA I've come to the former home of the Battsons,

the previous owners of Henry's painting.

This is Greystone Mansion, perched high in Beverly Hills.

When it was built in 1928,

it was the grandest estate ever to have been constructed in the

City of Los Angeles.

I'm hoping to find out more about Henry's painting.

Where did the Battsons acquire it?

And why did it fall from grace, stripped of the name Constable?

I'm meeting Lucy Battson's family, who've agreed to share what they know.

Peter and Will, it's lovely to meet you here at Greystone in the home of

your grandmother, your grandmother by marriage, Lucy Battson.

Tell me a bit about her, what was she like?

Well, she smoked until she was 100, and drank.

-She was a very strong woman.

-Very strong.

But scary, but very interesting.

We all used to call her sweetheart,

and you might wonder why that was.

Most of us felt it was a huge misnomer.

Because she was quite the opposite!

What can you tell me about the painting?

Well, I can tell you that we found a photograph of it,

hanging in their next house.

-That's it!

-Yeah.

-There on the wall!

It's wonderful to see Henry's picture once hanging proudly as a

genuine Constable, but where did it come from?

So how did she buy her art?

The majority of it was purchased in the, I guess, in the late '50s.

And in going through Mr Battson's diaries,

that's how we found the entry which tells us about the purchase of the

-painting.

-Oh, wow.

-Yeah.

And this is 1957.

European trip.

"Went to see Mr Dudley Tooth at Arthur Tooth & Sons."

Now, Arthur Tooth, very well-known dealer at the time in London,

very respected dealer.

"Bought a Constable and a Monet."

And so that, as far as you are aware,

is the Constable that was hanging in that photograph.

-Correct.

-How interesting.

-Well, that's just brilliant.

-Yeah.

With this reference to Arthur Tooth, which obviously we'll check out,

this takes us back ten years further into the past in terms of our

-knowledge about the painting.

-Interesting.

We had taken it back as far as 1967, now we're back at 1957.

This is an intriguing new provenance lead, which I need to investigate.

But there's another mystery I'm also hoping to solve.

How did the picture come to be rejected by the art world?

Do you know what happened to the painting?

Well, after her death, all of the art work was taken to auction and...

..most of the paintings, impressionist paintings certainly,

were going to be sold in New York,

but it was recommended that this particular picture

be sold in London.

And upon the experts in London looking at the painting,

there was a strong feeling that it was not by Constable's hand.

And they were going to re-attribute the picture

to a circle of Constable.

So this is the moment, then,

when the painting ceased officially to be a Constable.

-Correct.

-What was the reaction in the family? What was your reaction?

-Well...

-HE CHUCKLES

..the reaction was, "OK, so send it back."

But somehow that got lost in the Pony Express

and they sold the painting.

-It got sold?

-Yeah.

-Yes.

-So you never saw it again?

-Never saw it again.

-Wow.

How will you feel if we do manage to prove it's a John Constable?

-I think we'd probably be very happy for the current owner.

-We would.

And also prove that our grandmother was right.

-Sweetheart knew what she was doing.

-Yeah, exactly.

I'm following this exciting new paper trail back to London.

After checking the archives, I've some news for Henry.

Now, Henry, take a look at this to begin with.

Oh, wow, there it is.

There is your picture.

Unquestionably, isn't it? Isn't that marvellous?

But, moreover, Leigh Battson was a prolific diary writer.

And look at this name, Arthur Tooth & Sons, and he writes,

"Bought a Constable..."

Is the Constable your Constable?

Yes, it is, because we checked.

Arthur Tooth's archives.

Here we are, Willy Lott's Cottage, sold to Leigh Battson, 1957.

The Arthur Tooth records show that in 1957,

Henry's painting was sold as a 100% authentic work by John Constable.

Some 30 years later, though,

the world's leading Constable experts had instead concluded it was a fake.

Most likely the work of one of the artist's many imitators.

The problem is, Henry, we've entered shark-infested waters now in the art world.

Constable is one of the most faked artists of the 19th century.

Have a look at these two pictures.

Which one do you think is by Constable?

Ooh. How long do I have?

Well, I like a challenge.

What do you think, Henry? I'm going to let you decide.

I would have said that one.

You are correct, but look how close that other one, which is a pastiche,

in other words, based on this famous painting The Cornfield,

but with a few motifs from other pictures,

like the rainbow and the church.

You can see how difficult it is.

-Yeah.

-OK, but have a look at these three.

-Oh, my goodness.

-THEY CHUCKLE

Now, one of them is right, two are not.

In my opinion, it's between these two.

And on balance, I would go for the one on the far right.

Congratulations, Henry, I salute you, you are right,

that is the genuine Constable.

Oh, well done, Henry.

-A bit of luck.

-Because that one is a shocker.

I thought that was a bad photograph.

So the one in the middle is a pastiche,

another one of those works based on a famous painting by Constable.

And the one at the end is in fact

nothing more than a duplicitous fake,

it was published in 1905 as a real Constable.

The point is, though, Henry, we've entered a nightmare for us in

the art world, and with any luck,

forensics will pick up whether another hand has been at work with your picture.

Back at the Hamilton Kerr Institute,

I'm hoping thorough technical analysis might provide clearer evidence of

whether Henry's picture is the work of Constable or a forger.

Chris Titmus, a fine-art imaging specialist, is using ultraviolet,

infrared and X-ray photography to look through the paint layers.

-Hi, Philip.

-Hi, Sarah.

Sarah Cove is going to interpret the images.

What you can see here, which you can't see on the painting,

is that the horses and cart have all been moved to the right over here.

But underneath there are these very sweet,

tiny little brushstrokes here

which would have been done with a soft-haired brush,

which I suspect are the legs of a horse,

which is no longer visible,

so we've got layers and layers as the artist is working through his

thoughts and keeping on changing it.

But that's fascinating,

that's just the sort of thing I find so encouraging when you're trying to

prove that a painting is by somebody,

because it's an indication of a proper artist at work.

Is a faker going to do that?

So far, so good.

But what about those rogue brushstrokes that Sarah was unconvinced by?

We can see them very clearly here in the infrared.

They are just like dabs of the end of a brush with these funny dots in

a line and exactly the same here.

We might find out a bit more if we look at the ultraviolet light image.

And in actual fact, those dodgy brushstrokes stand right out.

They couldn't be clearer, they look like sinister fingerprints.

I think that there's a possibility

that they might have been added by a later hand.

So two artists at work rather than one?

That sounds like a problem.

It might be a problem or it might not.

We know that after Constable's death,

lots of his paintings were worked on because his children were small and

they wanted to try and sell them to raise money for the family.

So artist friends painted up some of the pictures, maybe added things,

smartened them up, made them look a bit more finished,

just to make the paintings more saleable.

Well, that's both a chilling and intriguing thought.

This kind of tampering was just the beginning.

As Constable's reputation grew in the decades after his death in 1837,

unscrupulous dealers began touching up unfinished works and forgers began

to pollute the market.

I'm genuinely really surprised to hear that there may be two hands at

work in this picture. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with it,

I never speculated that that might be a possibility, which is, to be fair,

both good news and bad news.

I mean, it's good because we know that happened to some Constables.

After his death, it was par for the course, the sketches got built up,

turned into more commercial pictures.

It's bad news because if this is by Constable and we can't get to it,

we can't see what's beneath, then it will never get through.

With Sarah's analysis raising tricky questions,

I'm taking up the provenance trail.

I've been trying to find out who owned the picture before it passed

through the Arthur Tooth gallery in 1957.

And I'm following up a possible lead.

Colnaghi is one of the oldest and most respected commercial art galleries in London.

Since it was founded in the 18th century,

many a masterpiece has passed through its doors

and they hold extensive records

of the paintings they've bought and sold.

I've asked the team here to check if Henry's picture was one of them.

Now this appears to be a catalogue, Paintings By Old Masters.

April 1954.

Right. So, these are real heavyweight old masters.

I mean, Colnaghi was famous for selling these trophy pictures.

Here we go, look at it.

-There it is.

-There it is, absolutely.

-And there's a catalogue entry beneath.

-Ah, John Constable.

Number 15.

"According to Mr RB Beckett...

"it is an alternative design for the famous Hay Wain.

"The picture may have been painted in the studio between 1817 and 1820

"and not quite finished,

"possibly because the painter preferred another composition."

Do you know, this is a real revelation.

Beckett was a leading Constable scholar,

and for him to take it under his arm,

well, that's progress.

But hang on a moment, it looks different.

If we compare the 1954 photo to how Henry's picture looks today,

the trees are much fuller, there's more foliage.

It would appear that your picture had been overpainted in some way,

it had been enhanced, someone had clearly tried to turn your sketch

into a slightly fuller picture.

And this is the evidence.

But at some time afterwards,

somebody has taken the overpaint off.

So this was a period in which it looked like a different painting.

It's clear to see that Henry's painting still bears the scars

of this botched makeover.

Could this have influenced the opinion of the experts who viewed it

in the 1990s and deemed it a fake?

We need to delve deeper into the painting's past to find out just

where Colnaghi acquired it.

So here we have the artist on the left here.

John Constable. Willy Lott's Cottage.

Collection of Mrs Smith, St Andrew's,

Priests Lane, Shenfield,

which must be in Essex.

That is utterly wonderful.

This is a name and address of a Mrs Smith

who owned your picture before it was at Colnaghi's.

It's very, very exciting,

and I sort of wonder who Mrs Smith is.

I mean, she was clearly an art collector and had very good taste, in my opinion.

I'm taking up the search for the mysterious Mrs Smith,

starting with burial records at the parish church in Shenfield, where she

is listed as Clarice Emma Smith.

She was married to a ship's broker called Alfred Harris Smith.

But where did they acquire Henry's painting?

I've been scouring newspaper archives for any mention

of a Constable picture called Willy Lott's Cottage.

I have unearthed a reference to one in a sale at Puttick & Simpson

auctioneers in 1930.

Could it be Henry's picture?

The British Library holds an extensive collection

of historic auction catalogues,

and an archivist has searched out the records of Puttick & Simpson.

So here is the catalogue.

Puttick & Simpson, May 28th, 1930.

And what is brilliant is we've got the auctioneer's set here.

So these are the detailed notes that any auctioneer will take of the sale,

who's buying, who's selling, the price that's been paid.

So Willy Lott's Cottage.

Here we go, Willy Lott's Cottage.

But to be sure this is Henry's picture,

we need to find out who bought it.

Not there.

Got it. Got it!

Here we go. AH Smith.

That's got to be Alfred Harris Smith.

The coincidence would just be too great.

But who was selling it?

Henry's painting, which we know was once owned by Alfred Harris Smith

and Clarice Smith, was before that owned by none other than the

Right Honourable Lord Dewar, formally of Savoy Court, London.

And he sounds to me sufficiently grand to have owned a Constable.

I've been doing a bit of digging about Lord Dewar.

He lived here at The Savoy until his death in 1930,

and it turns out he was quite a character.

I'm meeting Philip and Henry here so I can share some exciting news.

-Hello, Fiona.

-Hi there.

-So, of all the bars in all the world, why here?

-I should have known

you would have come up with some terrible cheesy line, Philip.

-Henry, how are you doing?

-Very well, thank you.

The reason we're here is because I now know who owned your picture

before Alfred and Clarice Smith.

-Wow.

-You've got a name?

-I've got a name,

and the reason we're here at The Savoy is because this is where he lived.

He had a home in Sussex, but this was his home in London.

And in fact, he was the longest-serving resident here at The Savoy,

living here from 1904 to 1930, when he died,

when the property from his apartment,

including your picture, was sold.

How fascinating.

Absolutely fascinating.

And before I tell you his name,

I've brought you a little gift, Henry.

-Oh.

-As an embodiment of his spirit.

Oh, great.

A bottle.

Oh, wow. John Dewar & Son, Dewar's White Label.

OK, think less John Dewar, more son.

-OK.

-Because one of his sons was this man, Lord Thomas Dewar, Tommy Dewar,

also known as Whisky Tom.

And he was sent down here to London when he was 21.

And his mission was to sell whisky, not just to London, but to the world.

And he was a natural salesman, witty, extrovert, charming,

went to the right parties, was friends with royalty.

And he was a great success.

He amassed a great wealth, and with great wealth...

..came a great art collection.

-Oh, great.

-And after he died, his estate was sold at an auction house.

And Willy Lott's Cottage was bought for 21 guineas

by Alfred Harris Smith.

-Smith. Smith.

-The link.

A Smith which we discovered in Colnaghi's.

It's one and the same painting, and that's your picture.

But, Henry, this takes us further down the spine of the 20th century,

we're now in the '30s,

but we need to find out where Tommy bought his pictures from,

and specifically, where he bought yours.

-To Whisky Tom.

-To Whisky Tom.

-To Whisky Tom.

We are on our way to Perthshire in search of Whisky Tom.

I want to find out more about Tommy Dewar and his art collection,

and crucially, where he acquired Henry's picture.

We've come to Dewar's Distillery in Aberfeldy to find out more.

Born in 1864, Tommy is credited with making Dewar's a global success.

He was one of the pioneers of modern advertising,

selling his whisky to the world in the most innovative ways.

In 1898,

he created one of the first motion picture ads,

featuring dancing Highlanders,

which he screened on a New York rooftop.

We are meeting whisky expert Charles Maclean,

who's going to tell us more about the man who owned Henry's picture.

How nice to meet you. Come and sit down.

He was a most remarkable character by any standards.

He was a consummate salesman,

and he was one of the very first to use art in advertising.

I can't help noticing around us in this room all of these images,

highly familiar images of Scottish art.

-I mean, the Raeburn of MacNab.

-Mm.

He owned that picture. You will see beside it these images of coaching

inns by Charles Maggs.

In which he's rather cheekily put the Dewar name!

Yes, he filled in the Dewar's name and used them in his print advertising.

And I can't help noticing over your head Monarch Of The Glen.

-Monarch Of The Glen.

-One of the most familiar images of 19th-century

Victorian art. Now, you're not going to tell me

that Tommy owned that as well.

He did indeed, he bought it in 1916.

And again, incorporated it into his advertising.

"A strong link of companionship, both from the Glens.

"One is Landseer's 'Monarch', and the other - 'Dewar's.'"

So, the man who owned Monarch Of The Glen

also owned your image.

Very reassuring.

Well, it adds substance, doesn't it?

Tommy was clearly a serious art collector who doesn't look like

he'd be duped by a dud.

But where did he acquire Henry's painting?

Dewar's archivist Jackie Sargent has been trying to answer that question.

With no clues in the company accounts,

she's been looking into where Tommy bought his other pictures.

So we know he had the Monarch Of The Glen painting.

In 1916 he purchased that.

And I looked at who had that painting before him.

And that was Thomas Barrett.

He was the chairman of Pears Soap.

Barrett was a pioneer of that type of advertising, using art,

and then Tommy Dewar followed very much in those footsteps.

So he was Tommy Dewar's mentor in many respects?

I think he was, that's the impression I get.

So this is an article in an art magazine in 1898

about the art collection of Thomas Barrett.

And here we have Monarch Of The Glen.

So there we have it,

and amongst the collection he also had nine Constables.

-Nine Constables?

-Yes.

-Well, that's incredibly exciting.

-Exactly. Yeah.

And I'd like to draw your attention to a little excerpt here in the

article, it describes one of them.

"Another wonderful harmony of colour is a palette-knife sketch for

"another of Constable's famous works,

"the watermill with 'Willy Lott's' house."

"..allowing for the effect of being viewed from a distance,

"the example in question is unsurpassed for its breadth,

"brilliant colouring, glowing harmonies,

"atmosphere and illusory qualities."

It certainly sounds like my painting.

And a palette knife as well.

You know, there's highly distinctive,

sort of flattened-on strokes.

And we've got Willy Lott's house!

Yeah. It's great, isn't it?

Those words,

if they do describe what I feel they probably do, which is your picture,

we're pushing back into the 19th century.

We are getting close to the life of John Constable himself.

Yeah. Well, this is very exciting.

It's a compelling theory.

Tommy Dewar bought Willy Lott's Cottage,

Henry's painting,

from friend and fellow art lover Thomas Barrett.

The question is - where did Thomas Barrett get it?

I'm still trying to take all of this in,

all of these things I've seen today.

I mean, I think it's true to say if I had encountered a fraction of what

I know now 20 years ago, I probably would have never sold this picture,

Henry wouldn't own it now.

And all of these chapters that keep unfurling,

but then there's that final chapter that we don't have,

and that's to do with Constable, or Constable's family.

Will we find it?

I hope we will.

We've taken the provenance as far as we can,

but before we present our case to the experts,

there's one final piece of evidence I want to explore.

We are heading to a studio in north London because I need the help

of a fine-art photographer.

I've asked Andy Johnson, former head of photography at Christie's,

to help me prove whether two pieces of evidence fit together.

Remember the fully authenticated pencil drawing we've established

relates to Henry's painting?

Executed by Constable in 1809,

this tiny sketch of Willy Lott's Cottage depicts

the left-hand part of the composition.

You can see it's matching the painting quite perfectly.

Wow. That's great, isn't it,

when you superimpose one over the other?

Constable's pencil sketch matches up with Henry's picture,

but the right-hand side of the composition is missing.

I think I've found that missing link.

Searching through all recorded sketches by Constable,

I've chanced upon another drawing of Willy Lott's Cottage, dated 1816.

It's held in a museum in Marseille, and they've sent me a digital image.

OK, Andy, can you manoeuvre the Marseille drawing to the right of

our drawing to show how they might fit?

Right.

Fading.

Interesting.

Can you crop the Marseille drawing in the upper roof area so that we

can see the other drawing beneath?

There it is, see what I mean?

I do!

It's like two bits of a jigsaw puzzle slotting together.

The two drawings match all the elements in the composition perfectly.

So we've got that full billowing foliage

into which Willy Lott's Cottage

nestles. And then, and I love this bit, bottom right-hand corner,

sharp right angle.

Do you see? The parapet.

OK, there's a figure on it in Henry's sketch,

but that's a really distinct compositional addition.

It's bringing in one of the very few hard edges in the picture.

I believe these two pencil drawings are what Constable would have used

to create Henry's picture.

Just sounding a slightly sceptical note for a moment,

and this is tremendously exciting,

but is it possible that a faker could have seen these sketches,

put them together and created Henry's painting?

-Is that possible?

-Well...

Apart from being the characteristic killjoy that you often are

in moments like this, because I reckon this is great progress,

um, yes, yes, I see where you're coming from.

But let's just think about it.

These drawings, once in Constable's studio,

have been separated for over a century,

one held in a museum in Marseille, the other in private ownership.

The chances of them both coming together,

being accessible to someone who wanted to create a pastiche,

an amalgam that looked like Constable,

I mean, the chances are so slim.

Sure. With this evidence,

surely now we are in a position to take Henry's painting and what we've

-found to the experts.

-I think we're as ready as we ever will be.

But having failed twice in the past

to convince Constable scholars this picture is genuine,

have we done enough?

Annie Lyles and Sarah Cove are two of the world's foremost Constable

experts, and it's their opinion that the art market seeks when it comes

to authenticating works believed to be by John Constable.

They've been reviewing all the evidence and examining the picture

in detail, as they weigh up their final decision.

I have to admit to being unusually nervous at this point,

but we have found more than I ever dared hope for.

We've managed to establish the view that was painted.

I mean, we've pretty well stood there,

it's next to where The Hay Wain was done.

We've looked into the painting physically, we found changes of mind.

That's not the sort of thing you would expect from a forger.

We have now discovered not one but two drawings that relate to this

composition in just the sort of way that Constable worked.

But with all of this evidence,

I can't bear the thought that I might fail again.

I think this is one of the strongest provenance trails we have ever had.

Unbroken back 120 years.

From the fabulously wealthy Battsons in Los Angeles,

preceded by whisky baron Tommy Dewar,

and before that, Thomas Barrett,

the Constable collector.

It's a stellar cast of owners.

What we haven't managed to do, though,

is take the painting back to Constable himself, or to his family.

So I hope it's enough.

Henry is on his way to the gallery.

And we're all about to discover whether his painting has been

accepted as a genuine work by John Constable.

-Hi, Henry.

-Hello, Henry.

-Hello. Hello.

-So, Judgment Day.

Have I been a complete fool?

-Hopefully not!

-It's like walking into the headmaster's office.

Well, if this is accepted as a fully authentic work by John Constable,

by Annie Lyles and Sarah Cove, I have no doubt that on that basis,

there will be collectors and museums out there who would consider paying

in excess of £2 million on this painting.

-And you paid?

-35,000.

And it's not just the value, it's its historical significance as well.

It would be extraordinarily important if we could prove

that this sketch went into the

thinking behind one of the most

famous landscapes ever painted, The Hay Wain,

it would be hugely interesting and significant in so many ways.

Not much at stake.

It's the moment of truth.

Annie and Sarah are ready to give their verdict.

-Hello.

-Hello.

Hi, Annie and Sarah.

We are on tenterhooks here.

Have you reached a verdict?

We have, we've reviewed all the evidence

and we've come to a decision.

And in our opinion,

it is indeed a genuine, authentic

compositional sketch by John Constable.

-Fabulous.

-Oh!

-Wahey!

Oh, brilliant, brilliant.

-Very good.

-Oh, great.

-That is such wonderful news.

-Very good news.

-A bit of a relief?

-Yes.

This is very good news. Yeah.

I'm thrilled, I've always loved the painting,

but I had the uncertainty as well.

So a lost landscape by John Constable has at last been

restored to its rightful place.

But I've got to ask you, what was it that persuaded you?

I mean, I've tried twice to do that, admittedly a long time ago,

but what did it this time?

I thought, if it was by Constable, it would be around about 1820.

And absolutely everything is there that you would expect to find in a

Constable of that date.

We know that at some point it was overpainted,

but most of that has been removed now,

and the small bits that are left don't affect the attribution at all.

What persuaded you, Annie?

One of the most important things in relation to persuading me finally

was those related sketches.

But also the provenance chain is so convincing.

You go backwards in time to Thomas Barrett,

and actually I have an extra piece of evidence for you.

I've discovered in a sale catalogue,

Christie's, 1874, that one Barrett,

and I think we can assume very safely that that's Thomas Barrett,

bought a Constable submitted for sale by Lionel Constable,

Constable's son, described as a sketch for The Valley Farm, which,

in my opinion, is almost sure to be this.

Wow. What do you make of that, Henry? That's incredible.

-Fantastic.

-It's very rare to find it so neatly going all the way back in

that unbroken chain.

Knowing what we know now, then,

how important would you say this painting is?

It's very important indeed.

I am staggered. It's fabulous.

So what will you do with this painting now, Henry?

Well, it needs to be displayed.

-So the public can enjoy it as well?

-Absolutely.

What a brilliant result.

I mean, how often does that happen, that we're able to take a painting

all the way back to the brush of the artist himself?

And you must feel vindicated.

Well, perhaps I wasn't deluded after all.

I mean, it began to feel like that.

I am so thrilled for Henry, but also for John Constable.

We've added another painting to the canon of one of the best-loved

landscape painters of all time.

If you think you have an undiscovered masterpiece or

other precious object, contact us at...