Painting that inspired depiction on £20 note more likely the work of John Opie, says Romantic artist’s biographer
In 2020, Tate Britain hosted the launch of a new £20 banknote bearing representations of The Fighting Temeraire by JMW Turner and the artist’s most famous self-portrait. Now a leading expert has said the latter work, part of the Tate collection, is not by Turner at all.
Dr James Hamilton, who has published books on Turner and staged exhibitions at museums and galleries nationwide, said that while the painting does depict the English Romantic painter, it is likely to be the work of his contemporary, John Opie.
Hamilton told the Guardian he started researching the portrait because “there’s nothing else like it in Turner’s work”. He said he “allowed its title to pass without comment” in his 1997 book, Turner – A Life, and even used it on the book’s cover, but had “failed to think hard enough about it”.
He now believes the portrait was misattributed after being included among nearly 300 oil paintings and 30,000 sketches and watercolours in the Turner Bequest following the artist’s death in 1851.
