'Missing' Turner may fetch £2.5m

The painting was last up for sale 135 years ago

A "missing" Turner masterpiece, depicting one of Northumberland's historic landmarks, is expected to fetch £2.5m at auction.

JMW Turner's Bamborough Castle was described in 1837 as "one of the finest watercolour drawings in the world".

It depicts Bamburgh Castle and has spent most of its life in a private collection of the Vanderbilt family.

The piece has not been seen in public for more than 100 years and will sell at Sotheby's in London on 5 December.

The watercolour dates from the 1830s and in 1872 was bought by the Earl of Dudley for £3,309 - a then record price for a watercolour. The painting was last seen in public 17 years later.

Open market

Shortly after the last public viewing, the watercolour was sold to the Vanderbilt family, who accrued enormous wealth by building a shipping and railroad empire in the 19th Century.

Unbeknown to outsiders, the watercolour passed through successive generations of the family, who are now placing it on the open market for the first time in 135 years.

Turner shows the castle, which had a reputation as a place of refuge for sailors during storms, from its north side to portray the height and presence of its Norman walls.

Henry Wemyss, head of British watercolours at Sotheby's, said: "Its recent re-discovery after more than a century away from the public eye, alongside its dramatic and powerful British subject, result in an incredibly rare and special work of art."