Britain's Lost Masterpieces

Series in which art sleuth Dr Bendor Grosvenor and social historian Emma Dabiri delve into Britain's local museums and country houses to look for lost and hidden public treasures. Pollok House is a country house right in a Glasgow city park, owned by Glasgow City Council and looked after by the National Trust for Scotland. It has a collection of Spanish art, the legacy of the man who once owned the house, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell. Unfortunately, some of its treasures have been placed in storage due to a leaking roof and renovations. But could one of these displaced pictures be a priceless lost work by Rubens? The painting's subject is George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the gay lover of James VI of Scotland. While Bendor squares up to a rival portrait in Florence which claims to be the real Buckingham portrait by Rubens, Emma finds that Stirling-Maxwell had a secret family in Jamaica and that sugar and tobacco built Glasgow long before shipbuilding was its major industry.