One of JMW Turner’s first paintings rediscovered after 150 years

Turner’s first ever exhibited oil painting is to be put up for auction after being lost for more 150 years.

The Rising Squall, features a dramatic view of a former hot spring and spa in Bristol seen from east bank of the River Avon, before Clifton Suspension Bridge was built.

It made its way around the world and returned to the UK but was unknown as a Turner masterpiece for more than a century. His signature was revealed after the painting was cleaned last year.

The artwork will be displayed in a public exhibition at Sotheby’s, in London, between 28 June and 1 July before it is auctioned with an estimated value of up to £300,000.

Julian Gascoigne, Sotheby’s senior specialist, said: “It’s a fascinating and very instructive insight into his early style.”

He added the painting represents Turner, famed as a watercolourist, as a teenage artist with “ambition and skill” in his early experiments an oil painter.

The painting made its debut at the Royal Academy in 1793, three days after Turner’s 18th birthday, before being bought by Reverend Robert Nixon, a customer of his father’s barber shop.

Reverend Nixon’s son inherited the painting after his death, Mr Gascoigne said, adding it then fell “into obscurity” having last been exhibited in Tasmania, Australia, in 1858.

The painting was done as part of Turner’s first artistic tour when he was a teenager, where he travelled from London to the West Country.

Mr Gascoigne said: “Bristol would have been a very natural place for a young artist based in London to get to relatively easily and relatively cheaply, but would provide him with the sort of dramatic, sublime, picturesque landscape that he was seeking.”

There was early mention of the painting in obituaries of Turner’s life but for at least a century it was mistaken for a watercolour, meaning it was missing from the catalogue of his exhibited oil paintings.

Up until the discovery last year during a restoration project, experts believed Turner’s earliest exhibited oil was the Fisherman at Sea painting.