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Mystery of Sir Winston Churchill's paintings finally solved

Sir Winston Churchill painting on Plage de la Garoupe, east of Cap Ferrat
Sir Winston Churchill painting on Plage de la Garoupe, east of Cap Ferrat

Art detectives on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? television series tried in vain in 2015 to prove that a painting of a sun-drenched village scene on the French Riviera was by Sir Winston Churchill.

But experts on the wartime leader rejected the attribution, partly because there was not enough documentary evidence.

Now British artist Paul Rafferty has uncovered a “smoking gun”, a thumbnail photograph of that very painting - the fountain of St-Paul-de-Vence - at Chartwell, Churchill’s family home in Kent.

It had been overlooked because it had been mis-titled, but it means that Churchill experts have finally authenticated the picture.

“This photograph is undeniable,” Mr Rafferty told the  Telegraph. “It’s in their archive.”

It is among dozens of exciting new discoveries about Churchill’s paintings which Mr Rafferty is to publish in a forthcoming book titled Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera, following five years’ of research. Its foreword is by Prince Charles, who pays tribute to him “for painting such a vivid picture of the artist, Winston Churchill”.

 A photograph of Cap-d'Ail
A photograph of Cap-d'Ail
The painting of the same area - Churchill Heritage Ltd
The painting of the same area - Churchill Heritage Ltd

The discoveries include tracking down the exact locations of more than 40 pictures, many of which have been formally re-titled, and casting further light on the great statesman, who once said: “If it weren’t for painting, I could not live; I could not bear the strain of things.”

Mr Rafferty said: “Historian Andrew Roberts said that there are 1,010 biographies on Churchill, which is an incredible number. So, to find anything new, you would think would be quite rare. Piecing these things together is important.”

Mr Rafferty, who lives in Mougins on the Riviera and will exhibit at the Portland Gallery in November, will include many of his discoveries in his forthcoming book, to be published on October 15 by Unicorn.

It documents Churchill’s love affair with the Côte d'Azur over 30 years. He captured the intense Mediterranean colours that he saw along the coast, while staying with friends in the finest châteaux and villas.

Tourrettes-sur-Loup
Tourrettes-sur-Loup
The painting of Tourrettes-sur-Loup - Churchill Heritage Ltd
The painting of Tourrettes-sur-Loup - Churchill Heritage Ltd

Knowing the country, both as a resident and as a painter helped Mr Rafferty’s research, along with searches on Google Earth and old postcards. When he located private estates, he persuaded their naturally-suspicious current owners to allow him in to photograph views that matched Churchill’s.

Mr Rafferty spoke of the thrill of finding the very places from which Churchill painted: “You feel emotional, you’re standing where he stood to paint - and nobody knows it.”

He added: “Many of his canvases had titles such as ’Somewhere on the French Riviera,' so I had little to go on. It has taken obsessive detective work.”

A photograph of Churchill painting on Plage de la Garoupe, east of Cap Ferrat, shows him at his easel, with cigar butts in the sand and a champagne bucket at his feet, top. Mr Rafferty identified paintings that he produced there, which previously had titles such as 'Beach scene on the Riviera'.

Churchill painting
Churchill painting
Churchill painting
Churchill painting

But perhaps the most significant discovery was succeeding where the BBC failed.

The episode, presented by Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce, had established that the painting depicted St-Paul-de-Vence and unearthed evidence placing the great man at the scene.

They believed in the attribution, along with Mr Rafferty, who detected Churchill’s pencil-marks and palette of colours. Although the picture had been found in the 1960s, in the coal-shed of a London house once owned by Churchill’s daughter, Sarah, Churchill experts still required further evidence. The programme ended with Mr Mould suggesting that evidence might one day emerge, adding: “You could say that Churchill lives to fight another day.”

He writes of stumbling across the clinching St-Paul photograph at Chartwell last year: “The title on the card was Red Rocks, but it was clear that it was of the BBC painting. This was a shocking and exciting moment. I believe the mis-titling of the work as Red Rocks might have left the painting in limbo forever, because only a person looking for this image would connect it.”

An unidentified figure in a dark robe stands next to the painting, but another photograph in the same archive shows Churchill wearing that robe at the fabulous nearby Chateau de l’Horizon, which he is known to have visited around 1935. That suggests a possible date for the St-Paul painting. In the mid-1930s, Churchill was out of office, but warning the world of the rise of Fascism.

The St-Paul painting is owned by Charles Henty, clerk to the Worshipful Company of Innholders, who had been disappointed by its 2015 rejection as he needed funds to save a family farm.

Mould had estimated then that, if authenticated, the picture could be worth more than £200,000, as Churchill’s pictures fetch top prices.

On Saturday, Mr Henty said: “This confirms what we knew all along.” Although the farm had to be sold, he cannot sell the painting: “It has such a connection and personal story to it now, I couldn’t bear to.”

Mr Mould, whose new Fake of Fortune? series is in production, said: “In over 30 programmes, I used always to quote this - until now - as one of our most unsatisfactory endings. I simply could not understand why – it gave me sleepless nights given the overpowering circumstantial evidence we had garnered.

“But it took Paul’s brilliant research to provide such an irrefutable piece of evidence such that the answer could only come back positive.”

In the book, Randolph Churchill writes of his great-grandfather’s discovery of “the muse of painting” after the disaster of Gallipoli.

Paying tribute to Mr Rafferty’s research, he notes that finding the St-Paul photograph enabled the painting’s authentication: “Without Paul’s determination and detective work, this discovery would never have been made. We are greatly in his debt.”

Churchill's paintings that have now been renamed
Churchill's paintings that have now been renamed