An artwork that changed hands for little more than £500 at a regional British auction has turned into an extraordinary discovery in the art world. Titled The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent’s Rock, Bristol, the painting was eventually sold for approximately £1.9 million at Sotheby’s in London in July 2025, after its attribution to Turner was established. The discovery was reported by The Guardian, The Art Newspaper and Artnet News, which followed the painting’s journey from an overlooked auction lot to a major Old Master sale.
The painting, initially believed to be the work of an artist associated with 18th-century painter Julius Caesar Ibbetson, was later identified as an early landscape by renowned British artist JMW Turner.
The story began in April 2024, when the painting appeared at Dreweatts auction house in Newbury, England. With no confirmed connection to a celebrated artist, the landscape attracted relatively little attention and sold for just £524.80, including fees. It was catalogued as House by the Water in a Stormy Sky and attributed to a follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson, rather than Turner himself. However, the buyer suspected that the painting might have been created by another artist, Philip James de Loutherbourg. During subsequent cleaning and restoration work, a signature reading W Turner was uncovered in the lower-left corner of the canvas.
A rare glimpse into Turner’s early artistic career
The work was Turner’s first oil painting to be exhibited publicly, appearing at the Royal Academy in London in 1793, when the young artist was beginning to establish himself. Its significance extends beyond its rediscovery. Art historians have also noted the unusual way Turner approached the medium at this early stage. His use of delicate, translucent layers of oil paint gave parts of the composition a quality more commonly associated with watercolour.