#3
Unsurprisingly, many viewers found the twist hugely entertaining, with one tweeting: "Fake. He's gutted. That's not going back on the wall near the piano. His daughter can draw a moustache on it now."
Another said: "Guy with fake painting, highlight of the year."
Tweeting the clip, someone else wrote: "Antiques Roadshow just gave the wife and I the best laugh of the weekend."
After discussing the picture, Maas turned to the guest and said: "The question is, is it by Lely? The catalogue of 1845 you've just shown me says Lely doesn't it, quite clearly. But in those days they had somewhat a looser interpretation of the trade description act, if it indeed ever existed.
"The thing about Lely, the great portrait painter that he was, is that when he died he left hundreds of unfinished portraits and versions of portraits already done.
"His students and studio assistants finished them really quickly, and sold them all so that his entire estate, including his collection of old masters, made something like £30,000 in the 17th century, which was a massive amount of money. He was so popular.
"It effectively flooded the market with versions of his pictures done by lesser hands, the question is, is it one of those?"
Delivering the disappointing 'blow', he continued: "The secret here is not to look too closely I'm afraid, you can tell I'm softening you up for a bit of a blow.
"Sorry but I think, I'm afraid, this is a shadow of a dream. It's not even by a studio assistant. I think it's a much later copy.
"Something about the reduced scale, of course it should be massive, makes it look more domestic. Something about the frankly Victorian idea of a 17th century frame, it's been copied.
Credit: BBC