Art historian James Hamilton has publicly claimed that J.M.W. Turner's most famous self-portrait, which appears on the £20 note, is actually by the painter John Opie. Hamilton, who used the portrait on the cover of his 1997 biography of Turner, argues that the work was misattributed when it entered the Turner Bequest—the vast collection of paintings and works on paper Turner left to the nation after his death in 1851. He points to stylistic evidence, noting Opie's signature technique of "light emerging dramatically from dark," and has published his research in Turner Society News, calling on the Tate to reattribute the painting.
This matters because the portrait is one of the most widely recognized images of Turner, reproduced on currency and in countless publications. If Hamilton is correct, it would represent a major revision of art history, reassigning a celebrated work from a towering figure of British Romanticism to a lesser-known portraitist. The Tate, which owns the painting, has said it plans to examine Hamilton's research, but two Turner experts have already expressed skepticism, setting the stage for a scholarly debate that could reshape public understanding of Turner's oeuvre.