Fake or Fortune drama as owner turns down £300k for rare painting

Viewers to learn if his gamble to auction lost masterpiece paid off

- NICOLA METHVEN

AN ART collector offered £300,000 for a lost masterpiece on BBC show Fake or Fortune? turned it down as he wanted to see if he could get even more at auction.

David Taylor, an artist himself, bought the oil on canvas at a regional auction house for £2000 because he liked the look of it.

He got a huge shock when experts authenticated it as a missing picture by important 20th century Canadian impressionist Helen McNicoll.

Called The Bean Harvest, the painting was last seen at an exhibition at London's Royal Academy in 1915.