Here are two self-portraits of J.M.W. Turner and Richard Parkes Bonington at about 24 years of age, although painted some 25 years apart. Turner was born in 1775 and Bonington was born 27 years later, in 1802. Both had precocious talents that were recognised when they were very young and enjoyed great commercial and critical success during their lifetime.

Both artists were primarily landscape painters, and both through their technical virtuosity and innovation, did much to raise the potential and status of the medium of watercolour on both sides of the Channel.

They admired each other’s work, which they saw at exhibitions and through the medium of engraving. Their relationship was one of mutual influence and creative competition. Turner’s Calais Sands, painted after Bonington’s death, is seen as a eulogy to the younger artist he so admired.