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Colnaghi

Founded in 1760, Colnaghi is the oldest and most important art dealership in the world.

Follow us for expert voices and behind-the-scenes access into Old Masters, Antiquities and Modern Art at our galleries in London and New York.

03/06/2026

Leonor Fini’s engagement with theatre occupied a central position within her wider artistic practice, offering a framework through which questions of ritual, performance, metamorphosis, and constructed identity could be explored beyond the limits of painting alone. Her costume and set designs reveal a fascination with theatrical space as a site of psychological and symbolic transformation, where the boundaries between the human, the mythological, and the grotesque become deliberately unstable.

Juxtaposed with ritual and performative objects spanning antiquity to the early twentieth century, including a Yaka ndeemba mask and an Alexandrian bronze grotesque figure, Fini’s theatrical works are situated within a longer visual history of masquerade, embodiment, and ceremonial display.

Leonor Fini: A Practice of Transformation at Colnaghi New York. On view at Colnaghi New York.

31/05/2026

Part of The Art of Adornment at Colnaghi London, these works reflect the historical importance of dress, jewellery, and coiffure within portraiture and representations of the body across antiquity and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. The finely carved Hadrianic marble head preserves the elaborate braided hairstyle associated with the Roman imperial court, while Jean-Baptiste Isabey’s portrait of an Arlésienne records the distinctive regional costume and elegance for which women of Arles became celebrated during the nineteenth century. Carle van Loo’s intimate Rococo portrait of his daughter Marie-Rosalie similarly captures the ornamental sophistication and delicacy associated with French court culture.

Juxtaposed with the jewellery of Sonia Petroff, the works place contemporary design within a longer history of adornment and self-fashioning.

The Art of Adornment is on view at Colnaghi London.

28/05/2026

discusses the market for Leonor Fini, in conversation with Will Elliott.

At Colnaghi New York, the exhibition places emphasis on the material and historical context of the works. Fini’s practice is presented alongside ritual objects from Greco Roman, Egyptian, and African contexts, situating her production within a broader framework of image-making and use.

13 May 2026 to 26 June 2026
Visit us at Colnaghi New York
Monday to Friday, 10am–6pm

23/05/2026

discusses the question of framing Leonor Fini, in conversation with Will Elliott.

At Colnaghi New York, the exhibition approaches this through a comparative framework. Fini’s works are placed alongside objects from Greco Roman, Egyptian, and African contexts, emphasising formal and symbolic correspondences rather than fixed classification.

13 May 2026 to 26 June 2026
Visit us at Colnaghi New York
Monday to Friday, 10am–6pm

19/05/2026

Rudolf Ernst (1854–1932), born in Vienna and trained at the Academy of Fine Arts under Anselm Feuerbach, was among the most accomplished painters of the late nineteenth century Orientalist movement. After relocating to Paris, where he exhibited regularly at the Salon, Ernst became closely associated with artists such as Ludwig Deutsch and Jean Discart, and established an international reputation through the support of the dealer Adolphe Goupil. His travels to Constantinople in 1880 and subsequent engagement with Ottoman subjects, reinforced through contact with Osman Hamdi Bey, informed a highly detailed and technically precise body of work. By 1889 he had achieved wide recognition, including a medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Chubuk Smoker exemplifies Ernst’s mature practice and his sustained interest in Ottoman material culture. Drawing upon objects collected during his travels, including textiles, ceramics and smoking implements, the work reflects the cultural significance of the chubuk, a long stemmed pipe associated with status, leisure and social ritual within the Ottoman world.

Part of Beyond the Threshold: Revisiting Orientalism II

20 April 2026 to 29 May 2026
Visit us at Colnaghi London, 26 Bury Street, London SW1Y 6AL, United Kingdom
Monday to Friday, 10am–6pm

17/05/2026

"Charles Robertson, RWS (1844–1891), was a British painter whose work was shaped by extensive travel in North Africa and the Levant and by the Orientalist tradition established by earlier Victorian artists. Born in London, he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1863 and travelled to Algeria from 1862, later visiting Jerusalem and Cairo in 1872. These journeys, during which he produced numerous sketches of monuments and daily life, formed the basis of his most significant works. Closely associated with John Frederick Lewis, RA, Robertson adopted a similarly meticulous approach to architectural detail and observation, and by the 1880s had established himself as a leading watercolourist, becoming a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour.

Shoes of the Faithful (1879), set at the entrance to the Mosque of Sultan Hassan in Cairo, is among Robertson’s most important exhibited works. Informed by his repeated visits to Egypt, the painting reflects his sustained engagement with the site, one of the principal monuments of the Mamluk period, constructed between 1356 and 1363 under Sultan al Nasir Hasan. The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1879 and widely published, consolidating Robertson’s reputation within late nineteenth century Orientalist painting.

Part of Beyond the Threshold: Revisiting Orientalism II

20 April 2026 to 29 May 2026
Visit us at Colnaghi London, 26 Bury Street, London SW1Y 6AL, United Kingdom
Monday to Friday, 10am–6pm

14/05/2026

Now on view: Leonor Fini: A Practice of Transformation at Colnaghi New York.

In Self-Portrait with a Dragonfly, Fini approaches identity as a mutable and unstable condition, where the body resists fixed definition and emerges instead through processes of continual becoming. The figure occupies a space between self-representation and invention, reflecting the artist’s engagement with transformation as both psychic and symbolic structure.

13 May 2026 to 26 June 2026

11/05/2026

Opening tommorow: The Art of Adornment at Colnaghi London

Colnaghi London presents The Art of Adornment, an exhibition bringing together works from Antiquity to the 20th century, shown alongside jewellery and belts by the luxury costume jewellery brand Sonia Petroff, including a first presentation of its Spring Summer 2026 collection. The exhibition continues Colnaghi’s programme of placing works across periods and disciplines into direct dialogue.

Highlights include an Olmec serpentine mask, a profile of an idealised woman by Jacopo Ligozzi, and an unfinished portrait by Olof Johan Södermark depicting a young woman in Italian costume.

Placed alongside Sonia Petroff’s designs, these works trace the evolving language of adornment as a marker of status, identity, and devotion. The presentation emphasises craftsmanship across disciplines, highlighting shared techniques, materials, and forms across three millennia.

09/05/2026

discusses his encounter with the work of Leonor Fini, in conversation with Will Elliott.

At Colnaghi New York, our upcoming exhibition presents Fini’s graphic works in dialogue with Greco Roman, Egyptian, and African ritual objects. The installation foregrounds shared concerns with transformation, hybridity, and the body as a site of exchange between visible and invisible realms.

13 May 2026 to 26 June 2026
Visit us at Colnaghi New York
Monday to Friday, 10am–6pm

07/05/2026

Opening next week: Leonor Fini: A Practice of Transformation at Colnaghi New York

Colnaghi New York is pleased to announce Leonor Fini: A Practice of Transformation, an exhibition bringing together works by Leonor Fini in dialogue with Greco Roman, Egyptian, and African ritual objects. Continuing the gallery’s commitment to placing artworks into direct trans historical and cross cultural conversation, the exhibition foregrounds a shared language of metamorphosis, spiritual agency, and the body as a site of transformation.

The exhibition situates thirty graphic works by Fini within a trans temporal framework. Her imagery, including sphinxes, feline priestesses, and androgynous figures, is presented alongside African masks, reliquaries, and ancestral effigies, foregrounding the body as conduit between visible and invisible realms.

At the centre of the exhibition is the relationship between mask and gaze, where concealment functions as revelation and identity assumes a ritual dimension. The presentation also considers sacred eroticism as a vital force, linking Fini’s figures to themes of fertility, protection, and continuity across cultures.

13 May 2026 to 26 June 2026

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