The Art Detectives Series 4
Factual Documentaries / 3 x 60' / HD, Airline, DVD, Non-Theatric
Tern TV Productions for BBC Four
Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri reveal the story behind some exciting new discoveries. In this series, Bendor suspects a portrait of a fellow of Merton College, George Oakley Aldrich, by an unknown artist may have been painted in Rome in the 1750’s by the master of Grand Tour portraits, Pompeo Batoni. A roughly painted woodland scene is catalogued as ‘After’ Thomas Gainsborough, but there is evidence it may be a preparatory sketch for the painters last great landscape, one of his picturesque ‘Cottage Door’ series and the art detectives uncover a Madonna and Child by a follower of Botticelli, but could it in fact be from the hand of the master himself? With the help of forensic scientific analysis and painstaking archive research we try to ascertain the true identity of these lost masterpieces.