Series 9

At a Norfolk country house, Fiona and Philip investigate an abstract metal sculpture that has spent years serving as a doorstop and garden water feature. Its owners believe it may be an early work by Henry Moore, but analysis of its materials and history leads the team toward another artist connected with the property.

The team examines Arab at Prayer, an Orientalist painting dated 1858 and signed by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Although once accepted as genuine, it was later downgraded to “Circle of Gérôme.” Provenance research, technical analysis and a fresh expert assessment are used to determine whether the work can regain its original attribution.

An oil painting of a dramatic battle scene may be Sir Edwin Landseer’s lost Time of War, believed to have been destroyed after the 1928 Thames flood. Fiona and Philip investigate whether the picture survived under another identity or is instead a later copy of the missing Victorian work.

A sheep farmer who paid £50 for a small religious painting believes it may be a preparatory study by Benjamin West for his monumental The Last Supper, commissioned for George III. Scientific examination, restoration and comparison with West’s known materials help determine whether the modest purchase is the missing second sketch for the royal composition.