LONDON.- One of the last great Turner masterpieces remaining in private hands will be the highlight of Sotheby’s London Evening sale of Old Master on 3rd December 2014. Painted in 1835 by Britain’s most celebrated artist, Rome, from Mount Aventine is among Turner’s most subtle and atmospheric depictions of the Italian city, a subject that captivated Turner for over twenty years. The large-scale oil painting is further distinguished by its exceptional state of preservation, as well as a prestigious and unbroken provenance, having changed hands for the only time in 1878, when it was acquired by the 5th Earl of Rosebery, later Prime Minister of Great Britain. The picture has remained in the Rosebery collection ever since and will be offered for sale with an estimate of £15-20 million.

Discussing the forthcoming sale, Alex Bell, Joint International Head and Co-Chairman of Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings Department said: “There are fewer than ten major Turners in private hands known today and this work must rank as one of the very finest. This painting, which is nearly 200 years old, looks today as if it has come straight from the easel of the artist; never relined and never subject to restoration, the picture retains the freshness of the moment it was painted: the hairs from Turner’s brush, the drips of liquid paint which have run down the edge of the canvas, and every scrape of his palette knife have been preserved in incredible detail. Rome, from Mount Aventine comes to sale at the same time as the groundbreaking exhibition of “Late Turner” at the Tate which will further enhance our understanding of the artist’s genius. Its emergence on the market represents a rare and exciting opportunity for collectors”.

Rome, from Mount Aventine is a brilliant technical feat demonstrating the artist’s virtuosity as a landscape painter. It is possibly Turner’s most serene and beguiling vision of Rome - an enduring, timeless image, in which every detail of the city is painstakingly and accurately portrayed. With infinite subtlety he captures the first rays of morning light as they dispel the rising mist from the Tiber and bath the eternal city in a soft golden glow. The work depicts the city as seen from the Aventine Hill, looking north across the ancient city to the Field of Mars and the distant Vatican. The topography is dominated by the luminous River Tiber, which meanders its way through the ruins of antiquity, the glories of the High Renaissance and the wonders of the modern metropolis.

This spectacular panorama of Rome was a response to a specific commission from Turner’s friend and most important patron during the 1820s and 1830s, Hugh Munro of Novar (1797-1864). Munro requested that the artist painted what he termed “a copy of the city”, a “picture of modern Rome” when Turner visited the city for the second time in 1828. However, it was not until seven years later, in 1835, that the work, based on detailed studies made during the artist’s trip, was completed. When Turner exhibited his work at the Royal Academy in 1836, the Morning Post wrote: “This is one of those amazing pictures by which Mr Turner dazzles the imagination and confounds all criticism: it is beyond praise. ”.

The painting was hung upon the walls of Hugh Munro of Novar’s London house until the sale of his estate in 1878. Here it caught the eye of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847-1929), who had just married Hannah de Rothschild, the greatest heiress of her day. He paid £6,142 for the picture, a price which exceeded all previous records for a work by Turner at the time1. The painting is one of two great works by Turner purchased by the Earl of Rosebery from the Munro of Novar sale, the other being Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino (first exhibited in 1839) for which he paid the lesser sum of £4,240. The latter picture was acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum at Sotheby’s London in July 2010 for £29.7 million, an auction record for the British Master.

Passed down to the descendants of the Earl of Rosebery, first hanging in their London house in Berkeley Square and then at Mentmore, Rome, from Mount Aventine has been on loan to the nation for the last thirty six years.


1 Despite the escalation in Turner’s prices in the 1880s, the painting held its position as the artist’s most valuable work for almost a decade.