£30m Scots Turner painting lost to nation

• Turner's Modern Rome — Campo Vaccino, owned by the Earl of Rosebery, sold at auction for a record 29.7 million. Picture: Sotheby's/PA

Turner's Modern Rome — Campo Vaccino fetched 29,721,150, more than 10m more than its predicted price and shattering the previous 20.5m auction record for a work by the British artist.

The landscape was bought at Sotheby's in London by the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It had been owned by the Earl of Rosebery's family since 1878 and is one of two major Turners they had loaned to the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS).

The masterpiece has been on loan to the NGS for 30 years and had been expected to fetch between 12m and 18m. It was sold to secure the future of the family's Dalmeny Estate, near Edinburgh.

Concern has been raised that the sale of the Turner would see other titled owners follow suit and cash in on the top-flight prices being paid for masterpieces.

The NGS, which has already jointly raised 50m to buy Titian's Diana and Actaeon and is committed to raising another 50m for a second Titian owned by the Duke of Sutherland, Diana and Callisto, made no move to save the Turner for the nation.

One senior Scottish art expert said a three-month "export stop" would allow a potential UK buyer to match the price, but that "no-one will have enough money to pay for it".

However George Gordon, Sotheby's Old Masters expert, said the UK already had a large collection of Turners and it was important for the artist's international reputation that his works were able to be viewed around the world.

"The Turner bequest to the Tate has given us a incredible richness.

There's a vast number of Turners in this country," he said. "I've often felt it is a great thing when more people get to see what a great artist Turner was. If you live in another part of the world you have to. It's not in the same league as when a very great but very rare work of art is sold and by its loss we're impoverished."

Selina Skipwith, keeper of the Fleming Collection, a private gallery of Scottish art, added: "We've just saved the Titians and it's a hard time financially, so saving a work for the nation, unless there's an extraordinary case, becomes harder to argue in the current financial climate."

The bidding process was fraught, with a flurry of hands going up at the start. Bidders were whittled down to six determined would-be buyers as the price climbed through the millions, before dwindling to two bidders in the room.

As the price headed through the previous Turner record, one bidder began asking for the increments to be lowered.

Mr Gordon said: "It was going up in millions and then the bidder asked for 500,000s and at one point he asked for 200,000 increments, which the auctioneer politely encouraged him not to do — you normally wouldn't do that at that level.

"It was entertaining when that happened, and that's why it took so long to reach its eventual selling price. There was a lot of 'Oh, I've stopped', 'Shall I come back in again', which could have been tactical."

The hammer came down after five minutes to a round of applause.

Joseph Mallord William Turner was a prolific artist, but the painting is said to be among a small number of key works of a quality capable of demanding such a high price.

Mr Gordon said that while the Getty was known for its buying power, it had not been a major player in the art market of late, ploughing its funds into its education programmes.

He said the acquisition was not a case of a "hugely overfunded institution writing a cheque without blinking".

"On the contrary, I think the acquisition was a major effort for them. That goes against the preconceptions, but times change and I think this was a major asset for them."

Established in 1954, the J Paul Getty Museum owns a collection of 450 European paintings dating from 1300 and is the richest in the world, after a bequest of $1.2 billion was made in 1982. It has an estimated 1.3 million visitors annually, making it one of the most visited museums in the United States.

Rare sale

Turner's Rome - Campo Vaccino is one of the most important works by the artist ever to come to auction, according to experts.

Painted in 1839, the view of Rome shows Turner at the height of his technical powers and is arguably his finest depiction of an Italian city.

The large work is his final painting of Rome and brings together all of the studies that he made during his two visits to the Italian capital.

The painting was further distinguished by its immaculate condition and impeccable provenance.

Before yesterday's auction, the painting had only appeared on the open market once in the 171 years since it was painted.

It was put on sale this year by a descendant of the 5th Earl of Rosebery who bought the painting in 1878 while on honeymoon with his wife Hannah Rothschild, and it had remained in his family collection ever since.

The picture, one of two Turners owned by the family, had been on display in the National Gallery of Scotland for 30 years.