Has a Turner turned up at Carrick Hill?

HOPE has been reignited that an oil painting owned by the people of South Australia is a genuine work by revered British artist J. M. W. Turner, potentially worth tens of millions of dollars.

A REMARKABLE string of coincidences has re-ignited hope that an oil painting owned by the people of South Australia is a genuine work by revered British artist J. M. W. Turner, potentially worth tens of millions of dollars.

Experts will reassess the authenticity of The Grand Canal Venice, which was bought for the price of a modest suburban house in 1954 by Sir Edward Hayward, for his Carrick Hill Estate at Springfield.

The painting of boats on a Venetian canal was left to the people of SA as part of the Hayward bequest, but unresolved questions about its provenance banished it to the attic in 1986.

The painting would have remained out of sight, but two crucial developments have led to a reassessment: the Turner from the Tate exhibition at the Art Gallery of SA, and the fact Adelaide conservation centre Artlab recently acquired more sophisticated equipment for analysing pigments and materials.

"If it is a Turner it will be a coup for South Australia," Carrick Hill director Richard Heathcote said yesterday.

Paintings by Turner (1775-1851) sell at auction for millions of dollars.

Mr Heathcoate "reopened the file" when he took the painting to Artlab to have it cleaned, intending to put it on display as a point of interest to the Art Gallery of SA show.

"The director of Artlab said `Just a moment, we can't clean varnish off if it might hold one of the clues to what the picture's history really is'," Mr Heathcote said.

"When they started to investigate it they found there had been at least two very clumsy restorations, which hides what's going on underneath."

Artlab director Andrew Durham will be in London next week and plans to discuss the painting with Turner expert Ian Warrell, co-curator of Turner from the Tate.

Mr Durham and Mr Heathcote also plan to consult other Tate staff who return to Adelaide in May to move the exhibition to the National Gallery in Canberra.

The public will be invited to make its own assessment when The Grand Canal Venice is put on display at Carrick Hill on March 6 for the first time in three years.

The picture was downgraded in 1986 by Carrick Hill's first director who had it labelled "After J. M. W. Turner", a term that means it was painted in the style of Turner by someone else.

Mr Durham said there was a chance the painting could be genuine.

"We wouldn't be wasting our time otherwise," he said.

The last Venetian painting by Turner to go to auction sold in New York in 2006 for $US35.9 million.

Mr Heathcote said it was a larger, more "complete" picture than Carrick Hill's but pointed to its considerable value.

He hopes to have the mystery solved before Turner from the Tate closes in May.