LONDON.- One of the greatest works by J.M.W. Turner remaining in private hands, Ehrenbreitstein is a late work dating from 1835, a period that is widely considered Turner’s best: other works from this time now hang in the world’s greatest museums, with only a minute number of this importance and quality remaining in private ownership.

Referred to as the ‘painter of light’, Turner is widely regarded as Britain’s foremost artist, whose unprecedented style not only had a profound and lasting impact on British art, but was also a vital precursor to both the Impressionist and the much later Abstract Expressionist movements. Earlier this year, Turner was confirmed as the new face for the British £20 note, having been voted the country’s most important artist from among the 500 or so names suggested by the British public.

Major works of such astounding quality by Turner are rare on the market. The last example to be offered (Rome, from Mount Aventine, painted in the same year as Ehrenbreitstein and offered at Sotheby’s in 2014) made a record £30.3 million / $47.6 million – the highest price ever achieved for any British-born artist at auction, and placing Turner alongside Rubens and Raphael as one of just three artists from the pre-Impressionist era to have achieved prices at this level.

The subject of enormous critical acclaim when it was first exhibited in the year it was painted, the work depicts the ruined fortress of Ehrenbreitstein near Coblenz – a place of special significance for Turner. Though he made many drawings and watercolours of German views, this is the most important oil painting of a German subject that Turner ever painted.

Also included in the sale was an unusually large group of ten works on paper by J.M.W. Turner (among them an early watercolour of Ehrenbreitstein), which together with Ehrenbreitstein makes for one of the largest – and most valuable - offerings of the artist’s work to come to the market at any one time. The group of 10 works on paper fetched a combined £1.3m, bringing the total for works sold by J.M.W. Turner today to £20.6m