Touch of Genius

When the doors of Christie's opened in London one day last week, a full-house crowd was waiting to squeeze into the auction room. Up for sale was a collection of 166 pictures, including Joseph Mallord William Turner's seascape of Helvoetsluys, the Dutch port. For the fourth time in a century, Londoners would get a chance to buy the painting that had become a legendary symbol of the rivalry between England's two greatest painters: Turner and John Constable.

Soon after Turner put what he thought were the finishing strokes to his misty grey seascape in 1832, the painting was hung at the Royal Academy next to John Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge. When Turner went to the gallery to varnish his painting for exhibition, he found Constable busily brightening his Waterloo Bridge with vermilion and lake. Silent, the pre-impressionist master watched, comparing Constable's work with his own. Then Turner fetched his palette and gave his Helvoetsluys an extraordinary touch: a round daub of red lead on the cold, grey sea.

That spot of brilliance seemed to dim the fresh lake and vermilion on the adjoining Waterloo Bridge. Constable snorted to a friend: "Turner has been here and fired a gun!" Two days later, Turner deftly turned the impromptu daub into a red buoy that can still be seen floating on his grey sea.

When the bidding for Helvoetsluys began last week, rival dealers quickly pushed the price up to 7,000 guineas ($20,580). Then a white-haired old gentleman of determined anonymity took the bidding to 8,000, finally walked away with the prize for 8,800 guineas.

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