Revealed, the bargain buy that could turn out to be missing masterpiece worth £230k
THE painting may be postcard-sized but one buyer’s gamble to fork out for a tiny artwork could pay off in spectacular fashion.
The art lover – attracted by the watercolour of Sir Walter Scott and his family at Abbotsford, the writer’s Roxburghshire home – paid less than £100 for the piece at a London auction house a few years ago.
Now, experts have told the anonymous buyer he is most likely the proud owner of a lost Turner – estimated to be worth £230,000. The buyer paid a ‘two-figure’ sum for the unsigned painting but suspected it was special and had it examined by experts.
Kirsty Archer-Thompson, collection and interpretation manager at Abbotsford, said: ‘I’m willing to stick my neck on the line that it is a genuine Turner.’ Libby Sheldon, another expert in painting analysis who supports the theory the work is genuine, said: ‘Everything about this little painting feels authentic and consistent with the great man.’
The watercolour by JMW Turner, one of the most celebrated British artists of all time, is now on show at Abbotsford.
Turner, who lived and worked in London, was known to have visited Abbotsford as a guest of Scott in 1831.