French forgery?
Art lover Henrietta hopes she’s got her hands on a genuine piece of modern art – but is it worthless?
Amedeo Modigliani was a renowned Italian painter, famous for his nude portraits. But as one of the biggest names in French modern art, he’s also one of the world’s most forged artists.
Art publicist Henrietta wants to know whether a delicate pencil sketch of a woman and child is a bona fide Modigliani in this week’s Fake or Fortune?
Long shot
‘Modigliani is one of the greatest post-impressionist painters of all time but he is much faked,’ explains ‘art detective’ Philip Mould, who investigates alongside Fiona Bruce. ‘With auction houses telling Henrietta this drawing was not able to be authenticated, she came to us to ask for help.’ Henrietta had inherited the picture from her grandfather, Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, a key figure in the art world who had apparently met Modigliani in Paris in 1918. Wanting to know if the artwork is genuine, Philip and Fiona go to Lille and Paris in search of clues… ‘Our journey took us back to the Parisian cafe society of the early 20th century,’ reveals Philip. If the sketch is real, it could be worth up to £100,000. But with experts around works currently 1,000 believing fake in there circulation, Modigliani are things aren’t looking good for Henrietta’s drawing...
‘If something’s too good to be true, it normally is,’ says Philip. ‘I hate giving bad news, so I try to make sure Fiona does that. She enjoys filming the bit of the programme where we reveal the outcome – I just find it stressful!’