I bought a £100 painting at a house sale decades ago – it’s worth £10,000
A COUPLE have told how they bought a £100 painting at a house sale without realizing it was a lost masterpiece worth thousands of pounds.
The owners, from Suffolk, had hung the JMW Turner painting in their living room for thirty years.
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The couple bought the artwork in the 1990s as part of a job during the eviction of a Georgian country house.
The family decided to hang the painting on the wall in their dining room in their home.
But the family didn’t know they owned a 19th-century treasure.
The painting had hung in our dining room for over 30 years – we frequently discussed that the photo might be Turner’s, but did not pursue it further.
Owners
The £100 bargain on a house sale turned into a windfall of almost £50,000.
The painting shows the entrance to Bishop Vaughan’s chapel in St David’s Cathedral and has the sign “W Turner” at the back.
Despite the authenticity mark, the couple thought it stood for Joseph Mallord William Turner, a 19th-century landscape artist.
The rare painting is Turner’s only completed architectural study on that subject.
HIDDEN TREASURE
One of the owners, who remains anonymous, said: ‘We bought it as a consignment of paintings at a house sale in the Suffolks in the early 1990s.
“The painting had hung in our dining room for more than thirty years. We regularly discussed that the photo could be of Turner, but did not pursue it further.”
It wasn’t until the family visited Pembrokeshire in 2022 that they discovered the truth behind the painting.
Their curiosity was aroused during a visit to St. David’s Cathedral.
Why is JMW Turner such an important artist?
JMW Turner was a child prodigy and studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, when he was only 14.
Turner opened his first gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the Academy in 1807, lecturing there until 1828.
But one of the main reasons he was so unique was because he loved to paint live, from observation, “en plein air”, meaning in the open air.
In Turner’s day, such a practice was a rarity, as most artists worked in their studios.
He painted in all weathers, from misty sunrises to violent storms, with one famous story claiming that he once tied himself to the mast of a ship – just to experience the feeling of waves crashing around him.
In addition to his ethereal landscapes, Turner also created darker paintings that capture moments from history, including Blizzard: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps.
He also enjoyed new technology, often painting steamboats and trains, which was quite a novelty in the mid-1800s.
They then rushed to the Tate Glore Gallery website to discover a replica of the painting.
The happy owner added: “After a trip to Wales in 2022, when we visited St. David’s Cathedral, our interest in our photo was reignited. At this point we went to the TATE Clore Gallery website and discovered the Turner sketch relating to our watercolour.
The archives of the Tate in South Wales possesses a similar but less developed drawing of the chapel.
Experts have verified the 13-by-9.5-inch watercolor as a Turner original.
The valuable item has now gone under the hammer at Cheffins in Cambridge for a whopping £37,000.
ONE OF THOUSANDS
Patricia Cross, from Cheffins, said: “This piece is an important new discovery that provides a glimpse into Turner’s early development as an artist.
“It is a wonderful example of his architectural drawing demonstrating his extraordinary attention to detail and his imaginative understanding of light and dark.
“It’s based on one of Turner’s first tours Wales as a professional artist and would have been completed as a presentation piece for one of his clients, back in his studio in London.
“The discovery of this new addition to Turner’s early works alongside the resurfacing of Chepstow’s previously untracked watercolor to date from a similar period, which we sold last year for £93,000, shows that Turner’s early watercolors are increasingly coming to the fore.
“It is the true definition of an auction house sleeper, and we were privileged to be able to offer it to the market.”
After his death in 1851, Turner left behind thousands of paintings and sketches.
It comes as a family discovered that a painting they had owned since the 1960s is actually a masterpiece that has been lost for a century.
The resurfaced painting has an estimated value of £42 million, but it remains a mystery how the family acquired the artwork.
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