Joseph Mallord William TURNER (1775-1851)

Starting on 1st July 2008, the Metropolitan Museum of New-York is hosting the largest ever American retrospective exhibition of the work of William Turner (1775-1851) for 40 years (J. M. W. Turner, 1 July – 21 September 2008). Seascapes, landscapes, historic scenes – all the subjects the artist liked to paint – will be presented. The exhibition is organised in association with the Tate Britain Gallery which has lent a large number of its exhibited works. In fact the London museum is also the administrator of the Turner Fund which essentially manages the legacy inherited by the British Crown after the artist’s death.

Although Turner began his career moving around the English countryside, he took advantage of the Amiens Peace Treaty of 1802 to discover the coastlines of France, the soft luminosity of the Loire and then Venice, where he returned three times. Indeed, his numerous trips on the European continent seem to have pushed his perception of the real in an increasingly abstract direction. His atmospheric landscapes reproduce a vibrant light that engulfs the subject in a sort of tinged haze. “The painter of light” enjoyed early recognition in Great Britain after a first exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1796 and was elected as an Academy member when only 27. Paradoxically, it was also his increasingly un-academic approach to landscapes that led his contemporaries to describe his later works as “follies”. Indeed these later works were so innovative that it took almost twenty years before Claude Monet began to draw inspiration from them after his 1870 tour of the British Isles. Hence William Turner is often considered a “precursor of impressionism”.

Before 2006, William Turner’s price index was as stable as those of the 19th century English landscape artists as a whole. However, in April 2006 it broke away from the group with the spectacular sale of Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio, a veduta that fetched 32 million dollars at Christie’s in New York. The work was first sold in 1841 by Elhanan Bicknell at the time of the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition. In the 19th century, the painting changed hands at auction several times. Then, after various private sales, the piece was donated to the Saint Francis of Assisi Foundation which eventually put the work up for sale in 2006.
Turner’s Vedute are particularly sought after at auctions. In the work in question, the architectural emblems of Venice were painted with slight “geographical” inaccuracies in terms of their relative positions. It features the San Giorgio Maggiore, the Doge’s Palace, Santa Maria della Salute, the Santa Maria delle Presentazione, the towers of the Redentore and the Saint Marc Campanile. The technical skill, the choice of subject and the characteristic handling of light all justify the exceptional result that the work generated in 2006.

Indeed, that sale appears to have triggered renewed interest for the master landscape painter. And his price has been enjoying very considerable momentum ever since. According to Artprice data, it has progressed by an average of more than 1000%! This price explosion has been materialised by a multiplication of million-dollar sales. In 2007, eight of his works reached this threshold, including seven water-colours. Before 2001, none of the artist’s paper-based works had ever reached that kind of price level. Among the most remarkable results, in December 2007 a watercolour entiled Bamborough Castle (1827) fetched £2.6m ($5.3m) at Sotheby’s London. At the end of the 19th century, the same work held the price record for a watercolour by William Turner for almost 30 years. Today, the record price for a work on paper by Turner is held by The Blue Rigi, Lake of Lucerne, Sunrise, a small watercolour measuring 45 cm (vertical) which went under the hammer in June 2006 for £5.2m ($9.8m). This painting is considered one of his most accomplished works.
Yet another example which perfectly illustrates the market’s recent enthusiasm for Turner is The Lake of Thun, Switzerland. Acquired for £230,000 in 1997, the work was resold for only CHF 300,000 (£130,000) in Switzerland during 2005. However when it next changed hands in 2007 at Sotheby’s in London, the bidding reached £800,000.

The market for William Turner is not exclusively reserved for bidders with millions of dollars to spend. Among the thirty or so paper works that come up for auction sale each year, many go for under $100,000. However, for that price the amateur does not get much for his money: a small and not particularly accomplished sketch … or maybe a wash tint. On 5 June last at Sotheby’s London, View of the Colosseum, Rome, a small wash tint in blue and grey ink dating from around 1795 when Turner was just 20 went under the hammer for £9,500 ($18,600). The same day, another work from the artist’s younger days, Boats in the Harbour at Dover, sold for £14,000. More colourful with a simplified composition and executed when the artist was 23, the watercolour Open Landscape with a Kiln and Mountains Beyond sold for £24,500.