Famous JMW Turner painting not a painting, says expert | JMW Turner

In 2020, Father Britain hosted the launch of a new £20 coin featuring scenes from The Fighting Temeraire by JMW Turner and a famous portrait of the artist. Now a leading expert has claimed that this last work, which is part of the Tate’s collection, was not Turner’s at all.

Dr James Hamiltonwho published Turner’s books and exhibited in museums and galleries across the country, said that although the painting depicts an English Romantic artist, it is probably a contemporary work, John Opie.

Hamilton told the Guardian that he began researching the painting because “there is nothing like it in Turner’s work”. He said he “let the title go without comment” in his 1997 book, Turner – A Life, and used it on the book’s cover, but “failed to think about it”.

It is now believed the painting was mislabeled after it was included among nearly 300 oil paintings and 30,000 drawings and watercolors in the Turner Bequest following the artist’s death in 1851.

Hamilton said: “The Turner family opposed the will and, after a long, torturous trial, the judge said that the family could have the money and the tribe receives the pictures – not only the ones he wanted the tribe to have, but everything by his hand in his studio…

“They had no way of knowing who the picture might belong to if it wasn’t Turner’s and of course it was too good to be lost. So it was lumped in with the rest. But it was never, even in the original list, a ‘painting’. It was always ‘Turner’s picture’. Gradually, over the years, it became his idea.”

The painting, dated c1799 when Turner was 24, was created by the artist’s “intelligent dexterity”, Hamilton added.

He said visual evidence points to Opie, who showed his hosts “a light coming out of the darkness”.

Among the many examples of Opie’s work, Hamilton chose picture of an unknown boy at the San Diego Museum of Art. “This has the same overall look as Turner’s portrait – the bright eyes, the strong shadow play and the attention-grabbing attention to the messy hair,” he said. “Indeed, the two images are identical at the same time.”

He also said that Opie had photographed many artists, incl David Wilkie and Thomas Girtinand that at least four of the pictures ended up with the sitters’ families. Opie is known to have admired Turner’s talent, and Hamilton has suggested that he may have given Turner’s portrait to his accomplice because it “had little or no commercial value to its creators”.

Writing in the fountain the story of Turner Society Newswhich publishes its investigation this week, Hamilton is calling on Tate to reassign Opie. “Turner wouldn’t have appeared on the £20 if it hadn’t been for such an iconic image,” he argues. “So, if he did, we have Opie to thank for taking Turner as a sitter.”

Dr Pieter van der Merwe, chairman of Turner Societyhe said that Hamilton made “a good case for his lack of self-representation, for the literary and for the lack of anything similar to his work, and for the reasonable but speculative nature of Opie”.

He added that he “didn’t know that anyone would do this in detail”, but hoped that Mr Tate would not change what he had done, “as there is also an accepted fact that the Turner Bequest only works with him…

Turner stated in his will that his paintings should be kept together in dedicated galleries. The split between the National Gallery and Tate Britain has been contested by Turner’s descendants and others.

Dr Selby Whittingham, Turner’s leading expert and former curator of Manchester Art Gallery is one such critic, who also remains convinced that the image is accurate. “I don’t think it’s Opie. His brilliance is characteristic of Turner’s work,” he said.

Hamilton said: “Nothing would please me more than for Mr. Tate to show us that this is just a painting…but he didn’t say…

A Tate spokesman said: “As part of the Turner Bequest, we are always welcoming new ideas about Turner’s life and new interpretations of his work. We look forward to reviewing James Hamilton’s research.”