Thanks to the support of the Pilkington Anglo-Japanese Cultural Foundation I was able to make a site visit to Rome 10-14 April 2015. This was to visit the exact viewpoint of Turner’s painting of Rome from Mount Aventine that was sold at Sotheby’s in London in December 2014 for a record £30.3m.
It is a quite a thought that I am probably the first person to have stood on the spot in consciousness of Turner’s treatment since the artist himself. Thanks to the good offices of Stefania Peterlini, Director’s Assistant and Permissions Officer at the British School at Rome, and to Dott.ssa Letizia Lanzetta, Director of the Instituto di Studi Romani in Rome, I was able to photograph Turner’s view as it appears, very little changed, today.
Photograph by David Hill taken 13 April 2015, 11.52 GMT
Click on image to enlarge
Oil on canvas, 92.7 x 125.7 cm; 36 ½ x 49 ½ ins.
Sold Sotheby’s London, 3 December 2014, lot 44, bought private collector.
Photograph David Hill (courtesy of Sotheby’s)
Sold for £30.3m, a world record for the artist, and the second highest price ever for an old master.
Click on image to enlarge
I published the first draft of an article on the topography of Rome from Mount Aventine on SublimeSites.co on 22 January 2015, but that was without the benefit of confirming my identification of the viewpoint on the ground, or being able to enjoy, examine and consider it on site. I am now completed the process of revising that first draft in the light of the visit, and integrating into it a goodly number of the photographs that I took on that occasion.
Sublime Sites 