If Antiques Roadshow had a baby with an especially scrupulous research team, the result would be the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? – a show in which presenters Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould try to pin down whether works of art are genuine. But you already know that, as it’s now been on TV for 14 years.
The opening episode of the 13th series is – as usual – careful and measured, a tone you will find either calming or tedious. Personally, I find myself lulled into a pleasantly geeky stupor as Bruce and Mould strive to trace the provenance of a painting purchased by carer Barry James from an antiques fair in 2022. Could it have been made by Winston Churchill in June 1916 at Herstmonceux Castle, as an inscription on the back of the canvas suggests?
Look alive! Thankfully, the stakes are higher than they might first appear. As we learn that a Churchill owned by Angelina Jolie sold for more than £7 million in 2021, it’s clear that the painting’s authorship is of huge financial significance – at least for Barry, who has been collecting art for decades and would like to take his family to Niagara Falls with any profits.
Painting owner Barry James bought the painting at an antiques fair (Photo: BBC Studios)Despite his wealth of experience, Barry has struggled to be taken seriously by auction houses in the past. “The way I speak, the way I dress, I just don’t look like the typical art person,” he explains to Bruce and Mould. Luckily, they’re just the double act to whisk him – and us – behind the rarified art world curtain, leaving no expert unconsulted along the way.
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Art dealer Mould begins by comparing the painting to undisputed works by Churchill, while Bruce turns up a memoir that seems to confirm the inscription’s date and location before heading to Herstmonceux herself to find the precise spot where the work was painted. Thus far, all evidence points to its legitimacy – but Fake or Fortune? is nothing if not judiciously even-handed, and the trail runs a little cooler when Bruce consults historian Claire Kennan.
Although Kennan is able to place Churchill at Herstmonceux in the summer of 1916, as hoped, the archival evidence suggests he was there in August rather than June. Talk about a fine-toothed comb – these teeth are microscopic, and they’re tearing Barry’s Niagara dream to shreds! If Fake or Fortune? were a person, they would be an absolute jobsworth – mildly infuriating, sure, but all the more satisfying when the checks and balances come out in Barry’s favour nonetheless.
An X-ray reveals another painting under the surface (Photo: BBC Studios)Indeed, the tables eventually begin to turn. A gardening expert explains that the scene’s flowering roses indicate an early summer painting date after all, while specialists at the Courtauld Institute use X-rays to reveal another composition beneath the surface one (Churchill was known to reuse his canvases). Ultimately, as the time approaches to apply for authentication, the signs are overwhelmingly positive.
Infuriatingly, no official bodies want to give a verdict, each nominating the other to make a definitive call. A lesser programme might fudge the ending for a happily-every-after conclusion, but Barry is left to ponder the promising but inconclusive results for himself. He decides to hold off selling the painting in hopes of securing more concrete evidence in the future – an eminently sensible decision, fitting for the most sensible television I have ever watched.
Fake or Fortune? is a reverse treasure hunt, beginning with a prize before working backwards to double-check its genuineness. It’s a paean to crossed Ts, dotted Is, and rational scholarship. Nothing untoward to see here: viewers in search of drama or scandal should certainly look elsewhere. But for those seeking an hour’s diligent reprieve from a world that can feel ever-more unpredictable, Fake or Fortune? is the real, soothing deal.
‘Fake or Fortune?’ continues next Monday at 9pm on BBC One
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