Stunning Turner watercolours sell for £10.7 at auction

Half of the 14 works fetched more than their original estimate, including one which reached almost three times its expected price.

Venice: Looking Towards The Dogana And San Giorgio Maggiore With A Storm Approaching (circa 1840), was sold for £2,988,000. It was expected to realise between £800,000 and £1.2 million at the Old Master Paintings sale at Sotheby's in London last night.

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The highest price was £3,604,000, paid for Lungernsee (c1848) against an estimate of £2-£3 million. In total, the entire collection, sold on behalf of Belgian collector Baron Guy Ullens, made £10,767,200.

The retired businessman, 72, said: "The decision to part with the Turner watercolours was a difficult one. My wife Myriam and I have enjoyed the privilege of living surrounded by Turner's genius for many years, and their absence now will be acute.

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"But parting with these wonderful works has been made easier because of the knowledge that they will now be enjoyed by other collectors.

The 14 paintings span 50 years of the artist's career, culminating in his late, impressionistic views of Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

Baron Ullens said it had been a "childhood dream" to collect Turners but he decided to sell to fund humanitarian work, notably in Nepal, and the building of a contemporary art museum in Beijing.

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Two paintings from the collection, however, remained unsold, including the top lot, Oberwesel, a mountain scene that had a pre-sale estimate of up to £3 million. Also during the sale a masterpiece by Velazquez sold for £8,420,000 — a world record for the artist. Saint Rufina is one of only a handful of works by the artist to come to auction. The portrait last appeared on the market in 1999, when it sold in New York for $8.19 million (approximately £4 million).

Velazquez, who died in 1660, spent most of his working life employed by the Spanish royal family. The painting, which depicts a Sevillan saint, was bought after a public appeal by the Focus Abengoa Foundation from the city.

Anabel Morillo Len, of the foundation, said: "We are delighted to have had the opportunity to bring the painting back to Seville, and to its people who have shown such interest in this image of the city's patron saint." The sales follow a record-breaking week of auctions in London last month, in which £500 million worth of art was sold.