"Turner and the Masters," at the Tate Britain in London from September 23 through January 31, 2010, offers a rare perspective on the artist, uniting around 50 of his color-drenched vistas with pictures by his Old Master influences, such as Rembrandt and Jacob van Ruisdael — as well as by such contemporaries as John Constable. Many of the works on display come from the Tate’s Turner-rich collection; when the artist died, in 1851, he bequeathed 300 oil paintings and nearly 30,000 watercolors and sketches to the museum. Thanks to his massive bequest, many of his finest paintings are off the sales circuit indefinitely. But the dearth of great Turners in private hands has only stoked demand for his work. Following is a brief rundown on his market.

The Record: As a painter, Turner has few rivals at auction. In 2006, Steve Wynn bought Giudecca, la Donna della Salute and San Giorgio, 1841, for $35.8 million, the highest price paid for a work of art by a British artist until Francis Bacon’s Triptych, 1976, eclipsed that sum in 2008.

The Hot, the Rare and the Undervalued: Emmeline Hallmark, the head of British paintings at Sotheby’s London, estimates that only 500 watercolors and 300 oils likely still exist in private hands. The rarest Turner watercolors are those that were removed from his sketchbooks before the books reached the Tate. Prices for these pictures range from around $20,000 to $10 million; this past July, Turner’s late 1820s Virginia Water sold for £881,250 ($1.4 million) at Sotheby’s London. The oils tend to bring much more, even in first-quarter 2009’s depressed economy. At the Sotheby’s New York Old Masters evening sale in January, for example, the artist’s undated Mediterranean landscape The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored fetched $13 million, among the top prices paid for a work of art so far this year. The best Turner deals may be found among his prints. He was a fastidious printmaker, and many of his proofs can be bought for less than $1,000.

"Market Snapshot: J.M. W. Turner" originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2009 Table of Contents.