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Tate Britain
Millbank
+ 44 20 7887 8888
London
Room 5
The Three Rigis
January 22-March 25, 2007

The Blue Rigi was sold in June, 2006, by Christie's for three times its estimated value. It is not known who purchased the work but an application to export it to America was barred to see if the money could be raised to keep it in the UK.

Britain's Waverley committee, which advises on export licenses, gave The Blue Rigi a starred rating, meaning all efforts should be made to save it. It was of outstanding significance for the study of Turner's final works, they said. The painting was regarded as a star attraction at an exhibition of Turner's watercolors at the Royal Academy in 2000.

When the public appeal raised over £550,000 in just over five weeks, NHMF — the "fund of last resort" for heritage at risk — underwrote the acquisition of Turner’s The Blue Rigi to a maximum of £1.95 million. This grant represents over a third of NHMF's current annual budget of £5 million, and means that The Blue Rigi is safe, ahead of the export deadline on March 20.

This significant contribution mirrors the phenomenal response from the general public to the appeal that The Art Fund and Tate launched on 22 January. Over 11,000 people donated £550,000 to save the watercolor for the nation, making it one of the most successful public appeals ever.

Donations have been received from all over the UK and there have also been contributions from as far away as Singapore, United States, Japan, Russia and Australia.

The Art Fund, the membership charity which has helped secure great works of art for Britain’s public collections for over 100 years, has awarded Tate £500,000 — one of the largest grants in its history — toward the purchase. This means that in total the public have contributed over £1m to this appeal. In an unprecedented move by Tate, its Trustees have allocated £2 million including a generous contribution from Tate Members.

The Blue Rigi was sold at auction on June 5, 2006 for the record price of £5.8 million making it the most expensive British watercolor ever sold. A temporary export bar was then put in place until March 20, 2007 by Culture Minister, David Lammy, and Tate was subsequently offered the painting at a reduced purchase price of £4.95 million, following the application of eligible tax remissions.

As part of the fundraising campaign, Tate united for the first time ever The Blue Rigi, The Dark Rigi and The Red Rigi in the exhibition JMW Turner: The Three Rigis at Tate Britain until 20 March 2007. These highly-prized finished watercolours are widely regarded as Turner’s finest works, as well as being arguably among the very finest watercolours ever painted.

From 1841 to 1844 Turner made annual tours to Switzerland, where he was inspired by the dramatic scenery around Lake Lucerne to produce a series of transcendent views of Swiss lakes and mountains. Chief among these are the three views of the Rigi mountain as seen from Lucerne, produced in 1842. Each shows the mountain at a different time of day and is characterised by a defining colour or tone (Dark, Blue or Red).

These finished watercolours are widely regarded as being among Turner’s finest works, and consequently among the very finest watercolours ever created. The Red Rigi has been in the National Gallery of Melbourne since 1947, but the other two Rigi views (The Blue Rigi and The Dark Rigi) were until last year in private hands, constituting the best of Turner’s late Swiss subjects still outside museum collections.

Turner painted the Blue Rigi and Red Rigi first, and likely meant them to remain together as studies in contrasting atmospheric effects, but they were sold to separate collectors in 1842. HAJ Munro of Novar, an important patron who bought The Red Rigi, encouraged the artist to paint a further view of the Rigi at dawn —The Dark Rigi — in which the cool blues and yellows served as an counter to the warm red glow in the sunset view already in his collection.

The three watercolors very quickly acquired legendary status among admirers of the artist. Even when considered alongside many other triumphs of his final creative bursts, these works have long been thought the best of Turner’s artistic achievement. Art critic John Ruskin recognised them as a significant climax in later stages of Turner’s development, and suggested that they should be seen as a self-conscious final flourish, which distilled the incredible powers and inventiveness that Turner had used to transform the range and quality of watercolour painting. He remarked: "Turner had never made any drawings like these before, and never made any like them again … He is not showing his hand, in these; but his heart."

The exhibition has united these extraordinary watercolours with Tate’s collection of Turner’s preparatory material for the Rigi series, including a sequence of sketchbooks and stunning watercolour studies that highlight the many hours of observation and contemplation that lie behind the finished works, and reveal the artist’s complete creative process.