Auction set to rock the boat

THE great British landscape and seascape artist J.M.W. Turner, who rendered rich symphonies of light, was a reasonably prolific painter. But apart from those in London and at Yale University, Turners are almost as rare as Vermeers. The Getty has one, the Huntington has one, but that’s about it for the Southland.

Which makes Angelenos’ opportunity this week to view a picture from Turner’s great Romantic period a pretty big deal.

“I think one can safely say this is one of the two or three finest paintings by Turner in private hands,” says Nicholas Hall, the international director for Christie’s auction house. On April 6, Christie’s will handle the sale of the 24-by-36-inch “Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio” in New York, but the firm’s Beverly Hills branch will display the canvas from Wednesday through Friday. It is also, Hall says, “probably the greatest British painting on the market” since another Turner sold in Britain two decades ago.

“It certainly is a spectacular example of his Venetian series,” says Albert Boime, a UCLA art historian. “He uses Venice usually to show calm and peaceful maritime scenes -- as opposed to London, where there’s conflagration and explosive, fiery action. This one, with all the pinks and blues and the transparency of the light, is a little bit like his watercolors. He’s one of the first to do this kind of exploration.”

Despite Turner’s status as arguably the greatest British artist of the Romantic Age, he wasn’t always beloved. Bloomsbury critic Clive Bell called him “that old vulgarian.” And as recently as the 1960s, the influential Clement Greenberg dismissed him as tangential to the evolution of major painting and “more important to subsequent bad painting.”

Still, Hall predicts that this Venetian oil will be “the most expensive British painting ever sold,” bringing in more than $20 million.

UCLA’s Boime thinks Hall might not be far off. “It’s an excellent work, and we haven’t had many Turners on the market lately,” he says. “So whatever happens will be a surprise one way or the other. The market has been weak on 19th century art lately, so this Turner could be a very important marker.”

Scott Timberg