Martin Henry Colnaghi


Martin Henry Colnaghi was a British art dealer for the London-based Colnaghi.

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 the grandson of the great Paul Colnaghi of Pall Mall.
Colnaghi had three marriages, but no children.
  1. Sarah Nash
  2. Elizabeth Maxwell Howard
  3. On 17 October 1889, he married Amy Mary Smith, daughter of the artist George Smith
Colnaghi died on 27 June 1908 at the Marlborough Gallery, and was buried in the family grave at Highgate Cemetery.

Legacy

Colnaghi bequeathed four paintings to London's National Gallery, Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna and Child and Saints, Philips Wouwerman's The Gypsies, Aert van der Neer's Dawn, and Thomas Gainsborough's The Bridge. 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.