Britain's Lost Masterpieces

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Series tracking down lost and hidden paintings from local museums and galleries.

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Britain's Lost Masterpieces: Petworth

Britain's Lost Masterpieces: Manchester

Bendor Grosvenor

Emma Dabiri

Sona Datta

Spike Geilinger

Brendan Hughes

Harry Bell

Tern Television Productions Ltd

Britain's Lost Masterpieces: Series 3: Episode 2: Manchester

Manchester

Episode 2

Episode 2: Manchester

Series 3

BBC Four - Britain's Lost Masterpieces, Series 3, Manchester

Dr Bendor Grosvenor investigates the works of German painter Johann Zoffany.

The team look at a work by Nathaniel Dance-Holland. But could it actually be by Johann Zoffany?

At the Manchester Art Gallery, Dr Bendor Grosvenor discovers a painting of a country gentleman from the 1770s which he believes has been misattributed to Nathaniel Dance-Holland. He feels sure it is in fact by the German painter Johann Zoffany, a favourite portraitist of the royal family under King George III. While the painting is restored, Bendor investigates the life of Zoffany - a chancer and adventurer who squandered his royal patronage through a series of predictable errors of judgement. 

Travelling to Florence to see the location of Zoffany's greatest painting, the Tribuna of the Uffizi Gallery, Bendor also visits Parma, where Zoffany painted an extraordinary self-portrait. The artist ended his career in India, where he made a fortune, and Bendor goes to look at Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match in Tate Britain with art historian Sona Datta. They unpack the undercurrent of sexual innuendo Zoffany had filled the picture with. 

Emma Dabiri investigates Manchester's support for the abolition of slavery through the history of the gallery's first purchase - a portrait of the black American actor Ira Aldridge. She discovers the story of the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition of 1857, the largest art exhibition ever held in Britain, and looks into the Manchester Gallery attacks by three suffragettes in 1913.

Britain's Lost Masterpieces: Series 3

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Tracking down lost and hidden paintings from Britain's local museums and country houses.

Using restoration, research and scientific analysis Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri examine three paintings that could be by Rembrandt, Titian and Johann Zoffany.

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Britain's Lost Masterpieces

Series 3

Episode 2: Manchester

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