Turner's 'Rome, from Mount Aventine' on display in Rome ahead of London auction

JMW Turner's painting “Rome, from Mount Aventine” is on public display at the Palazzo Rondinini in Rome for three days. According to The Guardian, the showing runs from Tuesday to Thursday. The painting has returned to the city that inspired it after nearly 200 years.

Sotheby's will auction the work in London in December. The auction house expects it to fetch around £50 million. The painting previously sold for more than £30 million. The Guardian puts that figure at £30.3 million, paid by a private collector in 2014.

The painting shows a panoramic view of Rome and is based on work Turner did in the city. The BBC says it drew on sketches made in Rome. The Guardian says Turner began it in Rome and completed it in London.

The painting has not been restored. The BBC describes it as believed to have never been restored. The Guardian says it has never been relined or restored. Traces of Turner's fingerprints and brush marks are still visible.

Reported details

According to The Guardian, the sale is scheduled for 9 December. Before then, the painting will be shown in Hong Kong and New York. The reports do not give dates for those showings.

The Guardian reports that the 2014 price made it the most expensive Turner sold to that date, and that the painting is expected to set a new record. It does not specify which record. The outlet also reports that the work is one of the few Turners still privately owned, remains on its original canvas and in its original frame, and shows the Tiber River seen from the Aventine Hill.

According to The Guardian, the painting was commissioned in the late 1820s by Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar, an amateur British artist who joined Turner on sketching tours. It was first shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1836, to mixed reviews. In 1878, Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and a prominent 19th-century British prime minister, bought it as a wedding gift for his bride, Hannah de Rothschild.

The Guardian says the painting has changed hands only twice since it was commissioned. The BBC says it has been to auction only once before. The Guardian describes two purchases: the 1878 wedding-gift purchase and the 2014 sale to a private collector. The reports do not identify the current owner or say whether the £50 million figure is a formal estimate.

What each side says

All positions in the reports come from Sotheby's. “Because it’s unlined, the surface of the picture is extraordinarily well preserved,” Julian Gascoigne, a senior specialist at Sotheby's London, told reporters in Rome, according to The Guardian. The outlet also quoted him as saying: “this is the only painting by the artist of Rome as it looked during his time,” calling it “his great love letter to the city that inspired him throughout his life.”

Mario Tavella, chair of Sotheby's Europe, hopes a public museum will buy the painting, according to The Guardian, which quoted him as saying it should be somewhere “where it could be admired by everyone”.

The reports do not include an assessment of the painting from anyone outside Sotheby's.

Analysis

The December sale may offer a signal about demand at the top of the market for historic British paintings. If the result exceeds the 2014 price, it could set a new benchmark for Turner, though the reports do not say which record is at stake. Who buys the work also matters. A public museum purchase, as Sotheby's Europe's chair hopes, would open it to wider viewing. A private buyer could keep it out of public view. Readers should note that the £50 million expectation is attributed to Sotheby's, the auction house handling the sale, and that the reports quote no one outside Sotheby's on the painting's value or condition.

Traceability
Sources (3): BBC News · BBC News (Arts) · The Guardian (Culture)
Independent origins: 2 · Perspectives covered: west-left, west-public
Confirmed: 9 · Reported: 15 · Disputed: 0 · Confidence: high
Review: 3 AI reviewers (Claude, GPT-5.6 Sol, Kimi) · 32/32 claims backed by 2+ reviewers with verified evidence · 0 errors · approved
Drafted: 2026-09-30 13:02 UTC

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