Roman Hotel to House Record-Breaking Tiepolos

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An anonymous buyer purchased in May the series of five paintings—three of which are by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and said to be the most important Tiepolo works auctioned over the past 50 years. They sold for £3.9 million, a record, but still far below what the works could have fetched if Italian law had not required they be sold as one work and kept in the country.

Although staff at the Cavalieri Hilton won’t confirm reports, sources in Italy have identified the buyer as the hotel’s owner, Angelo Guido Terruzzi, an industrialist from Genoa and a mega-collector of 18th-century Venetian paintings.

Known to be discreet, Terruzzi, dubbed “the King of Nickel” in Italy, owns properties in Milan and Bordighera, as well as the south of France and Mexico. His art collection of 4,000 works is estimated to be worth more than £350 million.

The Cavalieri Hilton already houses his collection of art and antiques, including a gilt-bronze, kingwood-parquetry commode, made in 1745 for the King of Poland; four 18th-century Venetian landscapes by Giuseppe Zais; two works by the Rococo painter Giuseppe Bazzani; and several 18th-century Beauvais tapestries.

The Daily Telegraph: Art sales: 'King of Nickel' with the golden touch