This year's exhibition at Turner's House in St. Margarets, near Richmond, London, “Unfinished Business: The Mystery of Margate and Turner’s Bequest” will give visitors the opportunity to see an extraordinary sea painting by one of Britain's greatest maritime artists, displayed within the house he designed and had built in Twickenham by 1813. Sandycombe Lodge, as he called it, was his country retreat from the rigors of the London art world. On loan from the National Gallery, London, Margate (?), from the Sea, one of his later works from circa 1835-1840, will be the focus of an exhibition that uncovers the complex and fascinating story of the Turner Bequest, and reveal how attitudes to Turner's work changed across the centuries. [...]

The Turner Bequest included a large group of paintings that Turner had never exhibited and were deemed unfinished. This included Margate (?), from the Sea. Those paintings were judged during the 19th century as unfit for display. Along with many other works of a similar nature, it was left uncatalogued, without a title and remained hidden away for over 50 years. It wasn't until 1905 that the picture was reassessed and accessioned into the national collection. A.J. Finberg provided the name, when inventorying the Turner Bequest and Martin Davies, later Director of the National Gallery (1968-73), added the question mark, calling the identification of the subject matter into question.