Fake or Fortune?

Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould investigate four very different art mysteries: a disputed Monet, a Winslow Homer found near a rubbish dump, a celebrated Vermeer revealed as a Van Meegeren forgery, and a supposed Rembrandt connected to Nazi looting. The series establishes the programme’s mix of attribution, provenance, ownership disputes and art-world authority.

The team examines a Degas with uncertain provenance, three Turner paintings dismissed as fakes for decades, and a heavily altered portrait linked to Van Dyck. Restoration and scientific analysis play a major role in recovering the original identities of the works.

Investigations involving Vuillard, Constable, Chagall and Gainsborough take the team through private collections, archives and international authentication committees. The outcomes range from major rediscoveries to a convincing modern forgery.

Works associated with Lowry, Renoir, Munnings and Churchill are tested through provenance research and forensic examination. Several cases show that compelling evidence can still fail to persuade the authorities who control an artist’s accepted catalogue.

The team investigates paintings and sculpture linked to Delaroche, Lucian Freud and Rodin, alongside difficult portrait attributions. Questions of family ownership, incomplete records and deliberate deception complicate the search for firm answers.

Three concentrated investigations focus on works attributed to Constable, Australian Impressionist Tom Roberts and Gauguin. Each case explores how provenance, technique and changing expert opinion can transform the status and value of an overlooked artwork.

The programme expands beyond conventional painting cases, examining works connected with Ben Nicholson, Toulouse-Lautrec, Henry Moore and Giacometti, as well as historically important portraits of Black British subjects. The series combines attribution with broader questions of identity and neglected art history.

Paintings linked to Sir Thomas Lawrence, Giorgio de Chirico and Venetian view painters are investigated through family histories, labels and documentary evidence. The cases repeatedly show how plausible provenance can conceal misattribution or later invention.

The team examines a supposed Henry Moore sculpture, a painting attributed to Gérôme, a lost Landseer and a small religious study linked to Benjamin West. The series moves between sculpture, academic painting and rediscovered works whose original identities have been obscured.

Cases include a Ben Nicholson mural painted directly onto a house wall, a Modigliani drawing, a disputed Sisley and a Flemish religious painting. Conservation and the physical relationship between an artwork and its setting become unusually important.

The investigations cover an Elisabeth Frink sculpture and works linked to artists including Pissarro, Cézanne and Arshile Gorky. Strong scientific and archival evidence repeatedly confronts the final authority of expert committees and estates.

The team investigates a flower painting attributed to Mondrian, a rediscovered work by Canadian Impressionist Helen McNicoll, music-related memorabilia and a disputed Corot. The McNicoll case provides a particularly significant recovery of an overlooked artist’s work.

A modestly priced painting possibly by Winston Churchill, two disputed Renoirs, a lost work by Frances Hodgkins and a damaged painting associated with Angelica Kauffmann form the core of the series. Several investigations begin with inexpensive or neglected objects that may have important origins.