A painting of Rome by the 19th- century British artist J.M.W. Turner sold tonight at a London auction for a record £29.7 million.
Turner's 1839 canvas Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino, a twilit view of some of the Italian capital's most famous monuments, had been expected to fetch between £12 million and £18 million at a Sotheby's Old Master and Early British Paintings sale.
It was bought in the room by the London dealer Hazlitt Gooden and Fox acting on behalf of the Getty Museum.
The price, the highest paid for a Turner, is the latest auction record paid for trophy works by major artists.
Alberto Giacometti's 1961 bronze Walking Man I sold for £65 million at Sotheby's. Pablo Picasso's 1932 painting Nude, Green Leaves and Bust fetched $106.5 million- a record for any work of art at auction - at Christie's International in New York in May. An Amedeo Modigliani sculpture took £43.2 million at Christie's in Paris in June.
The Turner sold today was the artist's last depiction of Rome and exhibited at the Royal Academy. It was being offered for the first time since 1878, when it was purchased on honeymoon by Hannah Rothschild and her husband, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, who later became Britain's prime minister.
The couple paid 4,450 guineas in old British currency for the work, and it hung in the family's country mansion, Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire, and their London residences for a century.
It was in unrestored condition in its original frame, said the New York-based auction house. Earl's Descendant The work was being sold by an unidentified descendant of the 5th Earl.
Harry Dalmeny, heir to the present 7th Earl of Rosebery, is deputy chairman of Sotheby's UK.
Joseph Mallord William Turner is regarded as Britain's most important pre-20th century artist, said dealers, and is among the most expensive. An 1841 view of Venice, Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio, sold in April 2006 at Christie's, New York, for $35.9 million, at the time a record for a British painting at auction.
Bloomberg