A large, late work by JMW Turner appears at Sotheby’s on July 5 with an estimate of £15-25m.
Ehrenbreitstein is one of five oils Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1835 and the last in private hands.
“Of those five paintings, it was Ehrenbreitstein that caught the imagination of the public and critics alike,” says Alex Bell, co-chairman of Sotheby’s. “Its true greatness lies in the way Turner applies his painterly genius to transform the ruins of a famous fortress into a poetic and symbolic image.”