JMW Turner's "Rome, From Mount Aventine," a masterpiece painting described as the artist's "great love letter" to Rome, has returned to the city for a brief exhibition after nearly 200 years and is expected to set a new auction record. The work will be displayed at Palazzo Rondinini in Rome from Tuesday to Thursday before touring Hong Kong and New York, then going to auction at Sotheby's in London on 9 December where it is anticipated to fetch £50 million.

The painting, one of the few Turner works remaining in private ownership, exemplifies exceptional preservation as it has never been relined or restored, retaining the original canvas and frame with visible brushstrokes and even Turner's fingerprints. The previous sale price of £30.3 million in 2014 set the existing record for Turner artworks, and this forthcoming auction is expected to surpass that figure significantly. Turner visited Rome in 1819 and again in the late 1820s, when he produced this work—the only painting he created depicting Rome as it actually appeared during his lifetime rather than an idealised historical vision. The painting has changed hands only twice since its original commission by amateur artist Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar in the late 1820s.