Martin Colnaghi

Martin Henry Colnaghi (16 November 1821 – 27 June 1908) was an independent British art dealer.

Personal life He was born on 16 November 1821 at 23 Cockspur Street, London, and baptised Martino Enrico Luigi Gaetano. He was the eldest son of Martin Colnaghi and his wife, Fanny Boyce Clarke, and a grandson of Paul Colnaghi of Pall Mall. A more detailed biography can be seen here.

Legacy Colnaghi bequeathed four paintings to London's National Gallery: Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna and Child and Saints, Philips Wouwerman's Two Horseman at a Gypsy Encampment (previously titled The Bohemians), Aert van der Neer's Landscape with a River at Evening( previously titled Dawn, and Thomas Gainsborough's The Bridge now held by the Tate (previously exhibited and titled Landscape at the Royal Academy 1892 Exhibition by Mrs Martin Colnaghi, page 6). He stipulated that after his wife's death, £80,000 should go to the National Gallery, to buy art, to form the Martin Colnaghi bequest. In addition, in 1908, his late wife Amy, bequeathed the portrait of her husband, painted by John Callcott Horsley to the National Gallery. After Amy's death in 1940 the remains of his collection were sold by auction at the Willis's Rooms (earlier known as Almack's) by Robinson and Foster Ltd on 22 and 23 January 1941.