What could be a missing painting by the artist JMW Turner, the English Romanticist landscape painter, has turned up in the basement of the Whitworth Art Gallery.
The painting of a sea scene off the coast of Margate was listed in their catalogue as “the Phantom Ship” though the title has since been changed to the “View of the Beach at Margate”.
The work arrived in Manchester after being part of a cache sold by Mrs Booth, Turner’s landlady and lover, when he stayed in the seaside town, and her son at Christie’s in 1865. It fetched £231, one of the most expensive Margate works sold, and was acquired by Manchester collector H T Broadhurst, the cotton magnate and was inherited by his son Sir Edward Tootal Broadhurst.
On his death in 1924 it was given to the Whitworth. For some reason it was not accessioned as a Turner, with the records showing that it was not considered to be genuine, with the valuation of the picture of £200.
The following year it was loaned out to Leeds City Art Gallery but as people had doubts at the time the work came into the Whitworth’s collection, it was since then has largely been confined to the basement stalls.
A few years ago, curator Ian Warrell was reconstituting Mrs Booth’s sale for an article he was writing and came across the work. It was the use of colour that convinced Warrell that it was a Turner, including the turquoise passage of water and after conducting further research, he concluded in January 2012 that this is a genuine oil painting by Turner, that is closely related to at least one work in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, The Morning after the Wreck.
However the gallery is still not certain that it is indeed a Turner, wishing to test by having the painting investigated scientifically by an oils conservator.
The artist had a long connection with the town, first coming aged 11, having been sent by his parents to school in Love Lane in Margate Old Town. He returned to sketch here aged 21 and from the 1820s onwards became a regular visitor.
He remarked to the influential writer and art critic John Ruskin that “…the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe”. The unique quality of light in this part of Kent drew Turner back time and again.
More than 100 of Turner’s works, including some of his most famous seascapes, were inspired by the East Kent coast. Margate was the starting point for his visits to Europe, and a love of the sea stayed with him all his life.
Now the painting is to go on show in Margate and for the first time the public will be able to view the work alongside other other Turner paintings of Margate.
View of the Beach at Margate” [O.1922.1], JMW Turner
Courtesy of the Whitworth, The University of Manchester
