One of J.M.W. Turner’s earliest oil paintings will head to auction with an estimate of £200,000–£300,000.
The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent’s Rock, Bristol, painted when Turner was just 17, had been misattributed for decades. According to the Guardian, the picture sold last year as the work of a minor 18th-century artist described as a “follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson.” Dreweatts, an auction house, estimated the work at between £600 and £800.
It was only during cleaning after the sale that Turner’s signature emerged. Sotheby’s, which will auction the painting next month, says the work now sheds new light on Turner’s early career.
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Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793, The Rising Squall captures storm clouds gathering over the Avon Gorge, with Bristol’s once-popular Hot Wells spa—a site later overshadowed by the Clifton Suspension Bridge—in the foreground.
Turner’s handling of oil here mimics the translucency of watercolor, hinting at the innovations that would later define his mature style. “It rewrites part of the Turner story,” Julian Gascoigne, a London-based senior director at Sotheby’s, told the Guardian.
The painting’s original owner, Reverend Robert Nixon, was an early supporter of Turner. He likely acquired it from the artist’s father’s barbershop, where Turner first found patrons. Over time, mistaken attributions consigned the work to obscurity.
Following a 167-year absence from public display, The Rising Squall will be exhibited at Sotheby’s London later this month before its July 2 sale. The sale coincides with the 250th anniversary of Turner’s birth.
