The Swansea museum store contains everything from a stuffed pigeon to a police car, but can Bendor and Jacky reveal a multi-million pound lost masterpiece that will not only become a jewel of Swansea museum's collection, but also re-write art history? Also in this episode, a rare appearance at the museum of a giant painting of local coal miners prompts Jacky to re-examine the life of the man who painted them, the renowned Polish artist Josef Herman. She tracks down those who remember him in South Wales.
Haddo House is one of Britain's most northerly stately homes. Tucked away in the wilds of Aberdeenshire, it has been home to prime ministers and earls - but is it also home to some of Scotland's greatest lost paintings? Nearby, in the storerooms of the Montrose Museum lies a mystery painting with a giant hole in it. The portrait shows Richard Mead, the patron of one of Scotland's most celebrated painters, Allan Ramsay. According to the history books, the painting is a copy of a painting in the National Portrait Gallery in London. But has there been an unfortunate mix-up, and is the painting in London in fact the pretender?
Dr. Bendor Grosvenor and Jacky Klein visit the Ulster Museum to investigate what have long been disregarded as low-value copies of works by Flemish artist, Peter Breughel the Younger. They also visit the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, in which a controversial painting once slashed with a knife is now kept in a room away from public view. The subject is believed to be William III and the Pope - these two characters in one picture would be guaranteed to rouse the passions on both sides of the sectarian divide. But has the painting been a case of mistaken identity? Bendor and Jacky investigate.
Pollok House is a country house right in a Glasgow city park, owned by Glasgow City Council and looked after by the National Trust for Scotland. It has a collection of Spanish art, the legacy of the man who once owned the house, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell. Unfortunately, some of its treasures have been placed in storage due to a leaking roof and renovations. But could one of these displaced pictures be a priceless lost work by Rubens? The painting's subject is George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the gay lover of James VI of Scotland. While Bendor squares up to a rival portrait in Florence which claims to be the real Buckingham portrait by Rubens, Emma finds that Stirling-Maxwell had a secret family in Jamaica and that sugar and tobacco built Glasgow long before shipbuilding was its major industry.
Along with a hippo skeleton, a stuffed hedgehog and a log boat, Derby Museum has the best collection of Joseph Wright of Derby paintings in the world. Wright of Derby is one of the greatest English artists who ever lived. He painted the most astounding ‘birth of science' scenes, his landscapes and portraits are exquisite and he was inspired by the Industrial Revolution. But can our team peel back layers of modern restoration on a mysterious landscape painting stuck in the Derby vaults to reveal another hidden masterpiece by Wright of Derby?
Carmarthenshire County Museum is a slice of history in itself. The building that houses it has been in continuous use since the 13th century, once a Bishop's palace it was where the Bible was first translated into Welsh. But could it also be home to some mysterious cases of mistaken identity and two lost paintings from the time of Charles II? Dr Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri travel to Carmarthenshire to investigate two intriguing portraits of a local nobleman and his wife, the Earl and Countess of Carbery, possibly painted by the great Sir Peter Lely in the 17th century. Yet all is not as it seems: Bendor has a hunch that one of the portraits is by another hand. Could the portrait of the Countess be a lost work by Mary Beale, Britain's first commercially successful female artist? While Bendor gets to grips with the badly damaged portrait of the Earl, Emma traces the story of how he survived the Civil War, how Mary Beale was written out of the history books, and discovers how the cross-dressing men of the Rebecca Riots stormed Carmarthen.
Hospitalfield House in the fishing town of Arbroath on Scotland's east coast is a Victorian treasure trove. The couple who owned this great house back in the 19th century were obsessed with the decorative arts, and Hospitalfield is full of ornate carved ceilings, sculpted fireplaces, exquisite plasterwork and stonework carved by master masons. It's still a place where artists work today and it has a fine picture collection. Among the many Victorian paintings, could a mysterious 16th century portrait by one of the great Old Master artists lie waiting to be discovered?
In Knightshayes Court Devon the team are examining a work that is a copy of a Rembrandt. But, might it be the real thing, a genuine self-portrait? Bendor discovers a small portrait of Rembrandt in the collection of a National Trust house, Knightshayes Court in Tiverton, Devon. The painting is thought to be a later copy of a self-portrait by Rembrandt now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, but Bendor believes it is in fact a study for the finished picture by Rembrandt himself. There is a third version in a collection in Germany that was always thought to be the original until the Amsterdam version was found in a Glasgow attic in 1959. The picture is sent to be restored and have a later background overpaint removed while Bendor sets out to see all three versions and in the process visits the world-expert on Rembrandt, Ernst van de Wettering, in Amsterdam. But Ernst does not want to engage with the painting. Bendor decides to try and use scientific investigation to prove the portrait is not a later copy. Emma explores the history of the house and its eccentric opium smoking Victorian Gothic architect, William Burges. She investigates the history of the lace factory in the town of Tiverton on which the family fortune was based, and tries her hand at golf, as the last family member in the house was British Ladies Golf Champion five times in the 1920’s.
At the Manchester Art Gallery, Dr Bendor Grosvenor discovers a painting of a country gentleman from the 1770s which he believes has been misattributed to Nathaniel Dance. He feels sure it is in fact by the German painter Johann Zoffany, a favourite portraitist of the royal family under King George III. While the painting is restored, Bendor investigates the life of Zoffany - a chancer and adventurer who squandered his royal patronage through a series of predictable errors of judgement. Travelling to Florence to see the location of Zoffany's greatest painting, the Tribuna of the Uffizi Gallery, Bendor also visits Parma, where Zoffany painted an extraordinary self-portrait. The artist ended his career in India, where he made a fortune, and Bendor goes to look at Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match in Tate Britain with art historian Sona Datta. They unpack the undercurrent of sexual innuendo Zoffany had filled the picture with. Emma Dabiri investigates Manchester's support for the abolition of slavery through the history of the gallery's first purchase - a portrait of the black American actor Ira Aldridge. She discovers the story of the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition of 1857, the largest art exhibition ever held in Britain, and looks into the Manchester Gallery attacks by three suffragettes in 1913.
Petworth House in West Sussex is one of the great Baroque treasure houses of England, and Dr Bendor Grosvenor finds two paintings which he feels warrant investigation: a portrait of a lady from Genoa which was once attributed to Rubens, but Bendor is convinced is by Anthony van Dyck, and a portrait of a young cardinal in the style of Titian, which Bendor believes may be by Titian himself. The restoration of the possible Titian starts to reveal a painting of two halves - the face and upper parts are the work of a very fine painter indeed, but the lower section with a badly painted hand is found to be a later repair with some very crude stitching adding an extra section of canvas to the bottom of the picture. While work continues, Bendor travels to Italy to look at some Titian masterpieces to support our understanding of his genius. In Titian's home city of Venice, he explains how the peculiar damp climate of the city led to canvas becoming the preferred medium for Venetian painters. He tells us how colour became the defining characteristic of the city's art and how Anthony van Dyck was so struck by Titian's paintings that he spent years in Italy following in his footsteps to study his techniques. Bendor's final visit is to the city of Genoa, where the Petworth portrait of a lady was painted. He shows us some works by van Dyck made in the city in support of his attribution of the picture to the Flemish master. Emma Dabiri explores the story of the third Earl of Egremont, who inherited Petworth in 1763 when he was 12. He had 15 mistresses, who all lived in the house, and he eventually had 43 children - all illegitimate. He died leaving no heir. He had a colourful life and was a friend and patron of JMW Turner. His Petworth Emigration Scheme allowed him to support the journeys of his tenants to start a new life in Canada - though, Emma discovers, it was quite advantageous for the earl to reduce his expanding workforce. Emma also tells the story of the a
In the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Dr Bendor Grosvenor identifies a portrait of a fellow of Merton College from the 1750s, George Oakley Aldrich. It is not known who painted the picture, but Bendor believes it is by the most famous painter of British grand tourists that ever lived, Italian artist Pompeo Batoni.
Could two anonymous landscape paintings, discovered at Birmingham Art Gallery, be by artists whose work profoundly influenced the development of European landscape painting in the 17th and 18th centuries? The first, a very badly damaged picture whose panel has spilt into two pieces is currently just attributed to the Flemish School rather than any single artist. The second is a forest scene thought to be a copy of a famous painting by Gainsborough. Dr Bendor Grosvenor believes the damaged painting is by Jan Breughel the Elder, a seminal figure in Antwerp during the 16th century. He believes the second painting is good enough to be by Gainsborough himself. The Flemish landscape tradition was a source of inspiration to Thomas Gainsborough. If these works are, as Bendor suspects, by these two eminent artists, they provide a fascinating, and previously missing, episode in the story of the development of landscape painting in European art.
Art detectives Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri travel to the National Museum Cardiff to investigate a badly overpainted Madonna, currently attributed to a follower of Botticelli, that shows signs of being worthy of investigation. Bendor believes the picture is good enough to warrant an attribution to Botticelli’s workshop, and conservation may reveal evidence of the hand of the master himself. Cleaning the picture confirms that a faker had tried to artificially age the panel. Bendor then travels to Florence to explore the early Renaissance, and the life and work of Botticelli, hoping to find evidence that will support a new attribution. Meanwhile, Emma Dabiri explores the story of the two immensely wealthy Welsh sisters who donated the work to the museum, and discovers how they tried to bring about their own renaissance in the cultural life of their native Wales.
Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri visit Brighton Museum to investigate who painted two religious pictures, and uncover the story of an extravagant building.
Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri travel to Georgian mansion of Tatton Park in Cheshire, where Bendor has spotted a mysterious portrait of a 16th-century physician in its collection.
Technical difficulties frustrate Bendor’s attempt to uncover who painted an unfinished portrait in a Glasgow museum. Emma reveals the true identity of the sitter after 300 years.
