JMW Turner's The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius

A Turner landscape featuring toga-clad revelers has sold at auction for £9.1 million ($12.9 million).

The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored is only one of three oil landscapes made by Joseph Mallord William Turner depicting ancient Greece.

It was picked up by an anonymous bidder during a sale at Sotheby's in New York. The price paid includes auction house commission.

The Turner piece was sold as part of Sotheby's Old Master sales, which are projected to tally more than more than £56 million.

Art dealer Richard Feigen, who sold the piece, said: "It's a dumb thing to sell a great painting. I didn't want to sell it."

He added: "Normally I wouldn't sell any of my paintings. I finally succumbed."

First exhibited in 1816, Mr Feigen has had the painting in his private collection for the past 25 years.

He said that Sotheby's offered him a guarantee, a secret minimum price the seller is paid regardless of the outcome. He turned it down, unwilling to share the upside of proceeds.

Last year, the painting was featured in a Turner retrospective exhibition, which displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In a separate sale at Christie's in New York, a quartet of Turner paintings sold for close to £1.3 million ($1.8 million).

The record for a Turner was achieved by Christie's in New York in April 2006. A Venetian landscape by the artist sold for £25 million ($35.9 million).