Open This Week at Colnaghi London
In Vino Veritas & Moving Stillness
In Vino Veritas: The Visual Rhetoric of Wine
In Vino Veritas examines the changing role of wine within the Western visual tradition. Bringing together archaeological material, sculpture, and painting, the exhibition traces a shift from the communal and ritualised culture of antiquity to the increasingly allegorical and reflective functions wine assumed within Renaissance, Baroque, and still-life traditions.
Byzantine, Amphora with Leopard Handles, c. 6th century AD, bronze, 38.1 cm high (15 in.).
Produced at a moment when Byzantine culture continued to absorb and reinterpret the visual inheritance of antiquity, this amphora illustrates the persistence of Dionysian imagery long after the Christianisation of the Eastern Mediterranean. The object occupies the intersection of classical tradition, luxury metalwork, and the material culture of wine.
Greek, Funnel Strainer, Early Hellenistic period, late 4th–early 3rd century BC, bronze, 21 cm diameter (8 1/4 in.).
Associated with a group of luxury objects discovered near Amphipolis, this strainer belongs to the highly developed drinking culture of the Hellenistic world. Such objects formed part of the symposium, one of the most influential social institutions of antiquity and a model that continued to shape European attitudes towards wine for centuries.
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux), Sacrifice to Priapus, 1770 or 1771, oil on canvas, 40.4 × 30.3 cm (15 7/8 × 11 7/8 in.).
Executed during Goya's Roman period, this painting belongs to a small corpus of works produced during the artist's formative encounter with Italian antiquity. Its subject reflects the eighteenth-century revival of classical paganism, a phenomenon that profoundly shaped artistic production in Rome during the decades preceding Neoclassicism's full emergence.
Moving Stillness: Nordic Painting and Drawing from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Early Modern Period
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed a period of profound transformation within Nordic art. As artists increasingly engaged with Symbolism, National Romanticism, and emerging modernist tendencies, landscape and everyday life became sites through which questions of national identity, perception, and artistic expression could be explored.
Olof Jonas Grafström (Attmar 1855–1933 Stockholm), Sami in the Kvikkjokk Valley, 1882, oil on canvas, 105 × 179 cm (41 1/3 × 70 1/2 in.).
Painted at the height of Scandinavian interest in the northern territories, this work belongs to a broader cultural movement that positioned Lapland as a defining component of Nordic identity. Its acquisition by King Oscar II shortly after completion reflects the growing national significance attached to representations of the far North.
Hugo Simberg (Hamina 1873–1917 Ähtäri), The Model Warming Up, c. 1906, oil on canvas, 67 × 43 cm (26 3/8 × 16 15/16 in.).
Produced during the same period as the artist's celebrated commissions for Tampere Cathedral, this painting demonstrates Simberg's increasing interest in everyday subjects. The work occupies an important position within Finnish art of the early twentieth century, when Symbolist concerns were increasingly being redirected towards the observation of modern life.
Gustaf Fjæstad (Stockholm 1868–1948 Arvika), The Snow, 1920–21, oil on canvas, 134 × 174 cm (52 3/4 × 68 1/2 in.).
Among the most celebrated interpreters of the Nordic winter, Gustaf Fjæstad achieved considerable international acclaim during his lifetime, with collectors ranging from King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy to major European institutions. Painted during the mature phase of his career, The Snow exemplifies the distinctive synthesis of Symbolism, Art Nouveau, and landscape painting that established Fjæstad as one of the defining figures of early twentieth-century Scandinavian art.
In Vino Veritas: The Visual Rhetoric of Wine and Moving Stillness: Nordic Painting and Drawing from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Early Modern Period are on view at Colnaghi London until 31 July 2026.
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