MADAM – I read with dismay your correspondent’s letter criticising ATG’s coverage of the latest series of the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? programme.
To describe this most eagerly watched and utterly convincing art-related programme as “irritating” and “somewhat of a joke” is quite extraordinary.
How the first show lived up to its name, as presenters Philip Mould, Fiona Bruce and experts on John Constable proved that an oil similar to The Hay Wain was indeed a prototype by Constable for that iconic masterpiece. Having sold the picture for £35,000 some years back, Mould accorded it a new valuation of £2m.