The wonderful ‘Mr Turner’

Mr Turner – a biographical film about a 19th-century English artist – was one of the most unlikely and unexpectedly successful cinema releases of last year. More than 160 years after his death – in 1851 – Joseph Mallory Turner would surely look on with wonder at the controversial works being produced annually by artists competing for the Turner Prize in his honour.

But the great Romantic landscape painter has had the last laugh.

Last month, at Sotheby's in London, one of his few remaining paintings in private ownership – Rome, from Mount Aventine – sold for £30.3 million (€38.6 million) – a world auction record for the artist. The panoramic scene of the Eternal City was sold by descendants of the 5th Earl of Rosebery who originally bought it for £6,142, in 1878.

Anonymous bidder
The painting, still in its original frame, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder.

Alex Bell, of Sotheby's Old Master Paintings Department, said: "There are no more than half a dozen major works by Turner left in private hands and this work must rank as one of the very finest . . . it is hard to overstate the importance of Rome, From Mount Aventine which, despite being "nearly 200 years old, looks today as if it has come straight from the easel of the artist" and "retains the freshness of the moment it was painted."

Admirers of traditional art may be reassured that the price paid was more than 12 times the £2.5 million (€3.3 million) paid at Christie's last year for Tracey Emin's infamous My Bed which, to widespread incredulity, had been shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999.

January light Turner never visited Ireland but painted a watercolour of Clontarf Castle, Co Dublin – based on a sketch by another artist. His only known Irish picture turned up in the Adam's sale at Slane Castle in October 2013 and sold for €65,000.

Meanwhile, there’s just one week left to see the annual January exhibition of watercolours by Turner at the National Gallery of Ireland, which ends next Saturday .

The collection, known as the "Vaughan Bequest" in honour of the benefactor, English collector Henry Vaughan, a Victorian art collector and philanthropist who died in 1899. Vaughan stipulated that the 31 watercolours and drawings should be exhibited to the public, free of charge, each January when the light is at its lowest level to prevent them being damaged by sunlight. Although technology has long existed to enable the watercolours to be displayed all year round, the Gallery continues to adhere to the conditions of Vaughan's bequest by showing the watercolours for one month only.