The first oil painting ever exhibited by Turner is set to go up for auction after being lost for more than 150 years.
Titled The Rising Squall, the artwork depicts a dramatic scene of a former hot spring and spa in Bristol, viewed from the east bank of the River Avon, before the Clifton Suspension Bridge was constructed.
The painting traveled across the world and eventually returned to the UK, but remained unrecognized as a Turner masterpiece for over a century.
It was only in 2024, after a cleaning process, that the artist’s signature was revealed.
Before its auction, the piece will be showcased in a public exhibition at Sotheby’s in London from 28 June to 1 July, with an estimated value reaching up to £300,000.
Julian Gascoigne, Sotheby’s senior specialist, described the work as “a fascinating and very instructive insight into his early style.”
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He further explained that the painting reflects Turner’s ambition and skill as a teenage artist experimenting with oil painting, despite being better known for his watercolours.
The Rising Squall made its debut at the Royal Academy in 1793, just three days after Turner turned 18. It was purchased by Reverend Robert Nixon, who was a client of Turner’s father’s barbershop.
According to Mr. Gascoigne, the painting passed to Reverend Nixon’s son after his death before slipping “into obscurity,” with its last known exhibition taking place in Tasmania, Australia, in 1858.
The painting was created during Turner’s first artistic tour as a teenager, when he traveled from London to the West Country.
Mr. Gascoigne remarked, “Bristol would have been a very natural place for a young artist based in London to get to relatively easily and relatively cheaply, but would provide him with the sort of dramatic, sublime, picturesque landscape that he was seeking.”
Though The Rising Squall was mentioned early on in obituaries about Turner, it was long mistaken for a watercolour and thus excluded from records of his exhibited oil paintings.
Before the restoration project uncovered this piece last year, experts believed Turner’s earliest exhibited oil painting was Fisherman at Sea.
