A masterpiece by painter Joseph Mallord William Turner, the subject of this year’s awards favorite Mr. Turner, far surpassed estimates during an auction at Sotheby’s in London.
A buyer over the phone won Turner’s 1836 piece Rome, From Mount Aventine for £30.3 million ($47.5 million), beating three other collectors. Sotheby’s confirmed to the BBC that this was the highest price ever for a work by a pre-20th Century British artist.
The piece was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1836. It shows a beautiful vista of Rome and was based on drawings made in 1828. Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro, a friend of Turner’s and patron, commissioned the work. It was also the first time the painting changed ownership since 1878, when the Fifth Earl of Rosebery bought it.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the Sotheby’s auction featured other old masters, such as Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Artemisia Gentileschi. The auction totaled $86.4 million.
Turner is the subject of Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, which will be released in the U.S. later this month. Timothy Spall plays the painter and he is widely expected to be in the conversation for a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
image via Twitter from The Guardian
image of ‘Mr. Turner’ star Timothy Spall courtesy of INFphoto.com