Almost two centuries later, the painting returns to the landscape that first inspired it.
Rome
J.M.W. Turner’s Rome, from Mount Aventine has returned to the Italian capital nearly 200 years after the British artist began developing the work from sketches made during his 1828 visit. Sotheby’s is displaying the painting for only three days at Palazzo Rondinini before it begins an international tour ahead of its December 9 auction in London.
The work presents a panoramic vision of Rome from the Aventine Hill, capturing the Tiber, Testaccio, rural figures beneath pine trees and the distant dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Turner was fascinated not only by the city’s architecture and ruins, but also by its atmosphere, color and light. The resulting composition combines ancient Rome with the lived city of the nineteenth century.
Turner did not complete the painting in Italy. He developed the composition from numerous sketches gathered during his second visit to Rome and finished the work later in his London studio. The painting was commissioned by Scottish collector Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar, one of Turner’s most important patrons.
Its physical condition makes it especially remarkable. The canvas has never been restored or relined, still retains its period frame and preserves direct traces of Turner’s working process, including palette knife marks, fingerprints along the edges and even strands from his brushes embedded in the dried paint. Specialists consider it one of the rarest surviving examples of Turner’s technique in almost untouched form.
Its market history is equally exceptional. The painting has changed hands only twice in nearly two centuries. In 1878 it became the most expensive work sold from Munro’s collection, while in 2014 it achieved more than £30 million at Sotheby’s, establishing an auction record for Turner.
That record may now be challenged again. Sotheby’s has placed an initial estimate of £50 million, approximately €58 million, on the painting. Before returning to London, the work will travel from Rome to Hong Kong and New York as the auction house presents it to international collectors.
The significance of the painting extends beyond its price. Turner helped anticipate later developments in Impressionism and even elements associated with abstract painting, particularly through his treatment of light, atmosphere and color.
Rome, from Mount Aventine therefore returns not merely as a valuable object. It returns as evidence of how one nineteenth century artist transformed observation into a vision that still feels unexpectedly modern.
Narrative is power too.