Is this the most valuable find on Roadshow?
A VICTORIAN portrait is expected to become one of the most expensive paintings ever valued on the Antiques Roadshow.
The artwork by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema has been described as ‘one of the best ever seen’ by the programme’s pictures expert Rupert Maas.
It features the engraver Leopold Lowenstam and was brought to the show’s filming day at Arley Hall, near Norwich, in Cheshire in June by the subject’s great-great grandson.
Mr Maas described the painting as one of the most ‘telling and beautiful’ the Roadshow has seen in its 38-year history.
He said: ‘Alma-Tadema was a Victorian Neoclassical painter, whose paintings inspired Cecil B de Mille – he is the most valuable Victorian artist today.
‘Tadema holds the record for a Victorian painting at $36million for an enormous picture sold in New York a few years ago.
‘This one doesn’t quite reach that because it’s not of a Neo- classical subject and it’s not huge. But it is very, very good, and shows another, more painterly side of his work than the girls in togas sitting on marble benches that he is known for.
‘I think this might be one of the best pictures we’ve ever seen on the Roadshow in its entire history. There are hardly any portraits of engravers at work at all, and this is one of the most telling and beautiful.’
Viewers will have to wait to find out the actual valuation when the programme is broadcast on BBC One tomorrow evening.
The show’s previous most expensive painting was valued in 2013. That picture, which had been bought by Canon Jamie MacLeod for £400, was found to have been painted by Anthony van Dyck and was worth £400,000.
The most valuable item on the show so far – a former FA Cup trophy - was featured in March this year, worth more than £1million.
Since the show was filmed back in June, the Alma-Tadema portrait has been restored, ready to be featured as part of the international touring exhibition of the artist’s work.
The exhibition, organised by the Dutch Museum of Friesland, starts on October 1 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, and will come to Leighton House in London in 2017.
Tadema’s great-great grandson told Mr Maas: ‘My great-great grandfather and the artist were close family friends and my great-great grandmother was the governess of Tadema’s children.
‘The portrait was a wedding present in 1883 and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy a year later in 1884.’