Joseph Mallord William Turner R.A. (1775-1851)
Rome, from Mount Aventine, 1835
Sold for £30.3 million / $47.4 million / €38.6 million
Sotheby’s London, December 2014
Joseph Mallord William Turner R.A. (1775-1851)
Modern Rome, Campo Vaccino, 1838-39
Sold for £29,7 million / $44,9 million / €35,7 million
Sotheby’s London, July 2010
Turner’s ‘Rome, from Mount Aventine’ sells for £30.3M ‘Rome, from Mount Aventine’ -one of the last great Turner masterpieces remaining in private hands- seta world auction record for the artist, selling for £30.3million /$47.4 million at Sotheby’s London, December 3rd 2014.]]>
December 4, 2014, source: Sotheby’s
This result also represents the highest price at auction for any pre -20th century British artist and the second highest price for any work ever sold at auction in the Old Master and British Paintings category. Four bidders competed for the work tonight, driving the work high above its pre-sale estimate. The sale coincided with a wider moment of Turner mania, with the groundbreaking exhibition of “Late Turner” at the Tate and Mike Leigh’s sensational “Mr Turner”.
Painted in 1835 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, when Turner was 61 years old, “Rome, from Mount Aventine” is one of the artist’s supreme achievements and arguably the most important view of the Italian city ever painted. The large-scale oil painting is further distinguished by its exceptional state of preservation, as well as a prestigious and unbroken provenance. Until this sale, the work had changed hands only once in 1878, when it was acquired by the 5 th Earl of Rosebery, later Prime Minister of Great Britain. The painting had since remained undisturbed in the Rosebery collection.
The spectacular work by Turner was the highlight of a high performing Old Master & British Paintings Evening sale which totalled £53,972,000 (€68,647,191 / $84,423,002), well above the high estimate (est. £32.2 – 44.9 million). At the same sale, Canaletto’s “Venice, the Piazza San Marco looking east towards the Basilica” -shown in public for the first time in almost 160 years- sold for £5,458,500/ €6,942,687/ $8,538,186.
Related content
Getty Museum acquires Turner’s ‘Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino’ for £29.7 million (news, July 2010)
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