If this painting is by Churchill, one man's life will change forever
'Poor Barry'. That's what I kept thinking all the way through the programme. Barry, the painting's owner and a passionate art collector, is a carer with a disabled son. The money he would make from selling this piece as one of the earliest known works by Churchill would be life-changing. But it's not just a sympathy vote. With every bit of research shown on the programme, the case for the painting's authenticity grew ever stronger. Unfortunately, the family members and experts who deal with such things tell him they are not in a position to authenticate it, sending Barry off to a professional auction house. Bonhams said they wouldn't authenticate it either, because they prefer to rely on the opinion of Churchill experts. So Barry is in limbo.
The detective work done by the programme was thorough, with presenters Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce travelling around the country to gather the evidence. Bruce went to Herstmonceux (its current spelling) to stand on the exact spot where the artist would have. There is no official record of the Churchills being at the castle in June 1916, but Violet Bonham Carter wrote in her diaries of seeing him painting in the gardens one June morning of that year, and Bruce even interviewed an expert who identified the type of roses in the picture and said they would have flowered in the month of June.
A handwriting expert matched the inscription to Claude Lowther, a politician who bought Hertsmonceux in 1911 and was said by Bonham Carter to have hosted Churchill that summer. That, and evidence that another view of the castle had been painted underneath, were taken as strong evidence that this wasn't a forgery. Meanwhile, Mould pointed out the similarities in style to Churchill's other paintings (he wasn't very good at painting people).
It's all circumstantial, and maybe that's as far as the evidence will go. When you're having to consult a rose expert at RHS Wisley, there's a sense that you're clutching at straws. Fake or Fortune has had luck in this area before, though: a painting of a fountain in St Paul-de-Vence, in the South of France, was featured on the show in 2015 as a potential Churchill work and a corroborating photograph turned up five years later.
The search was compelling, and the stakes felt high. For now, Barry lives in hope, determined to hang on to it until he can prove it really is a work by Churchill rather than selling it for £100,000-200,000 – Mould's estimate – to a buyer willing to chance their arm. Good luck to him.
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