Turner's 'Rome, From Mount Aventine' Goes on Show in Rome Before London Auction
J.M.W. Turner's 1836 landscape 'Rome, From Mount Aventine' is on display in Rome for three days before a Sotheby's auction in London on December 9, where it could fetch about €50 million.
One of J.M.W. Turner's best-known landscapes has gone on public view in Rome, ahead of a London auction where it could sell for around €50 million ($57 million) and potentially set a new auction record for the British artist.
"Rome, From Mount Aventine" was unveiled at Palazzo Rondinini in the Italian capital on Tuesday. It will remain on display there for three days before being offered at Sotheby's in London on December 9.
The 1836 painting presents a sweeping view of Rome from the Aventine Hill, looking out over the Tiber River. Sotheby's regards it as one of the most significant Turner works still in private hands.
The exhibition in Rome comes nearly two centuries after the city inspired the canvas. Turner based the painting on sketches made during an 1828 visit, and likely began the work in Rome before finishing it in London for exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Julian Gascoigne, a senior specialist in British paintings at Sotheby's, said the painting is notable for its exceptional state of preservation, which allows viewers to appreciate Turner's technique in unusual detail. He described how the artist applied oil paint "as if it was watercolor," building it up in successive translucent layers of hazy light and glazes, alongside the thick impasto of vigorous brush strokes and scraping of palette knives. Turner, he added, even used his fingers on occasion.
Mario Tavella, chairman of Sotheby's Europe, said the estimate reflects the painting's rarity, provenance and condition.
The work last sold at Sotheby's in 2014 for $47.6 million, setting what was then a record for a Turner. It has remained with the same owner since.
Turner's patron Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro commissioned the painting. It later entered the collection of Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, who went on to serve as British prime minister. According to Sotheby's, Rosebery acquired the work for his wife, Hannah de Rothschild, one of Britain's wealthiest women at the time. The painting stayed in the Rosebery family collection for more than a century before its 2014 sale.