Oswald Bernard Colnaghi
Date of birth: 1826
Place of birth: Middlesex
Date of death: 1907
Category: art dealer
Identity:
Oswald Bernard Colnaghi, a London art dealer, was the son of Martin Lewis Gaetano. His older brother Martin Enrico Luigi Gaetano (Henry) Colnaghi, was also an art dealer.
Life:
The Colnaghi's art dealing business had its origins in a firm founded in the mid-seventeenth century in Paris and London by Giovanni Battista Torre (d 1780), a pyrotechnist and printseller who dealt in English etchings and mezzotints. In 1785 Henry Colnaghi's grandfather Paul Colnaghi became Torre's partner in London. In 1788 he completely took over the London side of the business, and began publishing reproductive engravings of portraits, and historical and topographical subjects, receiving a Royal Warrant from George IV to supplement the royal print and drawing collection.
Successive generations of the Colnaghi family built up the range and reputation of the business, and in the 1830s, under the management of Henry's uncle Dominic Colnaghi, the firm's premises at 14 Pall Mall East, London, became a hub for important artistic, literary and political figures.
A significant number of Whistler paintings passed through the hands of the firm of Colnaghi, including La Mère Gérard (2) y027, Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room y034, The Coast of Brittany y037, The Artist in his Studio (Whistler in his Studio) y063, Study in Grey for the Portrait of F. R. Leyland y095, Arrangement in Black: Reading y224, An Orange Note: Sweet Shop y264, Note in Blue and Opal: The Sun Cloud y271, A Courtyard with an Open Workshop and a Standing Woman y308, Coast Scene: Bathers y326, Study for 'Brown and Gold: Lillie "In our Alley!" ' y463, Violet and Rose: Carmen qui rit y506, The Sea, Pourville y520, The Shore, Pourville y521 and Howth Head, near Dublin y538. The company also bought and sold over one hundred watercolours, pastels and drawings.
In 1901 O. B. Colnaghi was living on own means in Chiswick.
Bibliography:
The Post Office Directory of Stationers, London, 1872; UK census 1901; Colnaghi's, 1760-1960, London, 1960; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 ; MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 ; 'Colnaghi's', The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, ed. L. Macy.
