LONDON.- Classic Art London has announced highlights for its forthcoming inaugural event.
Leading galleries in Mayfair and St. James's, Cecil Court and Pimlico will be staging museum quality selling exhibitions from the 23rd June to the 4th July 2025.

The exhibitions covering Old and Modern Masters and some exciting British discoveries not to be missed. An accompanying talks and events programme will be announced shortly.

Old Masters

Charles Beddington Ltd will showcase Venice in the 19th century, “the forgotten century” as Charles describes it. A highlight will be Venice: The Volta di Canal at Night with the Festivities in Honour of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, 7th October, 1838 by Carlo Grubacs (1802-1870). This torch-lit view on the Grand Canal depicts the ceremonial barge carrying Ferdinand Emperor of Austria to a ball at Palazzo Foscari, following his coronation as King of Lombardy and Venice in Milan. The painting has a spectacular provenance from the Corsini Family in Florence for whom it was presumably painted.

Trinity Fine Art reveals in London for the first time a recently rediscovered work by Titian. Madonna and Child with St. Mary Magdalene can be dated to between 1555 and 1560. It has been hidden from public view in various private collections for more than two centuries. The picture is remarkable for its sophisticated composition and emotional depth, both typical features of Titian’s mature work. The superb quality of the brushwork and the excellent condition of the painted surface give this picture the edge over other versions of the same subject hanging in some of the world’s leading museums, such as the Hermitage, the Gallerie degli Uffizi and the Museo di Capodimonte.

The work was acquired by the Sebright family in the 18th century from an unnamed Milanese Palazzo and remained in their collection at Beechwood Park until 1937, when the house and contents were sold by Christie’s. After that it briefly resurfaced in 1947 when it was shipped to Rome to be relined and was shortly thereafter sent to a private collection in New York.

Fascinating details relating to Titian’s studio practices were revealed when the painting was X-rayed in 2024; this showed a window on the left that was later covered, demonstrating how Titian modified and changed the composition as the work progressed. Moreover, the Child originally had a sunburst halo, no coral necklace, his right hand was turned upward, and the Virgin’s mantle covered her knee.

The most striking reworking, however, is in the figure of the Magdalene which initially, was painted by Titian as a male figure, complete with beard, offering something to the Child (what, is unclear).

A highlight with Nonesuch Gallery (presenting online) is The Girandola above the Castel Sant'Angeloby Henry Parsons Rivière (London, 1811-1888). This striking watercolour with bodycolour depicts the Girandola fireworks display held in Rome on Easter Monday and when a new pope was elected. The display was held at the Castel Sant'Angelo, the papal fortress that was originally built as the mausoleum of the emperor Hadrian. The word girandola refers to the revolving wheel from which the rockets were fired. A historical reconstruction of the Girandola firework display is still held every year on June 29 to celebrate the festival of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Colnaghi will shortly confirm their show in Bury Street and Justin Raccanello (at 8 Duke Street alongside Karen Taylor Fine Art) will be showing four large and important Etruscan type vases circa 1820 from the collection of Captain Sir Everard Radcliffe. It has long been believed that the introduction of creamware ‘al uso inglese’ in Naples was due to the close friendship of Josiah Wedgwood with Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples and a noted collector of Greek and Etruscan pottery. Creamware in this style was achieved by the various creamware factories which started around 1800, the most renowned of which is the Biagio Giustiniani factory in Naples, Italy, from which these are fine examples.

A leading authority on antique frames, Paul Mitchell Ltd has worked with virtually every major museum in the world to reframe important works of art. Their studio in Avery Row, Mayfair is a trove of all styles and periods of frame imaginable. A recent example of their work was the reframing of a Cezanne, Portrait of Antony Valabrègue, 1869-71, for The Getty Museum. At some point the painting was placed in a gilded baroque Roman frame, with a rail width seemingly too slender to contain the scale of the figure, which fills most of the canvas and seems almost to move in to the viewer’s space.

The Museum chose an extraordinarily satisfying solution: a late 17th century Louis XIV pattern made in Provence, the painter’s own region. It avoids all carved ornament, the only decorative detail being the gilded panels at each corner with free-flowing stylised palmettes and foliage incised into the gesso. The portrait is now opened out, lending it space and air, and reinforcing the character of the sitter and his powerful presence.

Modern Masters

Daniel Katz Gallery presents The Spirit of Place (19 June – 31 July), an exhibition of the work of the celebrated British artist, Paul Nash (1889-1946). Famed for his vivid imagination and earlyinvestigation into the familiar English landscape around him, Nash sensed a world beyond the immediate, ‘haunted by old gods long forgotten’. The exhibition explores the value of place in Nash’s life, and how it fostered and developed his eye for the uncanny and otherworldly. Comprising ten important works by Nash spread across his artistic career, from the Romantic influence of William Blake to Victorian illustration and the development of the surreal in his later years, the exhibition examines the man behind each work and its unique place in the canon of Modern British art of the twentieth century.

Re-Imagining Cubism (23 June – 12 September) is at Ben Elwes Fine Art. Multi-perspective representation re-imagined in the gallery’s summer exhibition of Cubist works featuring painters working outside the traditional artistic centres of Cubism. The movement existed not just in Paris, but as parallel to manifestations of Modernism around the world, including in Russia, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, and South America. Ben Elwes Fine Art’s exhibition will focus on this Internationalism. The highlight will be the masterpiece, painted in 1918, by the Swedish Cubo-Futurist, Gösta Adrian-Nilsson (1884-1965) otherwise known as GAN – previously unknown outside of Sweden.

Impressionism is the theme at two major shows: Haynes Fine Art in Belgravia (Pimlico Road) is exhibiting Impressionist Masters both European and British, featuring examples by titans of the genre Degas, Renoir, Loiseau and Signac, as well as British artists such as Edward Seago and Dorothea Sharp (1873-1955), who was renowned in her day for her brilliantly lit Cornish landscapes and views.

David Messum Fine Art in St. James’s (Bury Street) will present the 51st edition of their annual exhibition of British Impressionism. Running throughout June and July, British Impressions 2025presents a curated collection of paintings and works on paper by members of the Staithes, Newlyn and St. Ives artist colonies, alongside founder members of the New English Art Club, many of whom are now celebrated as being at the vanguard of British Modernism. Together, they demonstrate the diversity and influence of the Post-Impressionist movement in Britain from the 1860s onwards. With numerous recently rediscovered paintings, as well as works from private collections that have not been seen by the public until recently, the show demonstrates the importance of the Post-Impressionist movement in Britain from its earliest beginnings.

British Masters

Karen Taylor Fine Art has recently catalogued of a group of 93 travel watercolours by the artist and travel writer Constance F. Gordon-Cumming (1837-1924), rediscovered in a descendant’s attic in an English country house. Born and brought up in the Highlands of Scotland, Gordon-Cumming’s mother Eliza also painted and Landseer, among others, was a regular visitor to the family home. Constance developed a love of mountaineering, and went on to travel extensively in Asia, America and the South Pacific. A group of 14 have been bought by the National Library of Scotland and a further group of 11 Sri Lankan subjects are now with the British Library. Further groups have been reserved by museums from several different continents. There are fine examples still available which will be on view during Classic Art London.

Alexander Clayton-Payne (showing at 6 Ryder Street, St. James’s), the drawings and watercolours specialist, will exhibit a group of important new discoveries including A Student’s Lodgings by John Absolon R.I. (1815-1895). Signed and labelled on the verso ’32 Jermyn Street’, Absolon’s home from 1837-1845. In 1836 whilst living in Old Bond Street with his father, a fire broke out in their property causing great destruction in the area including to Burlington Arcade. The Spectator reported that “multitudes had been to see the ruin”. This work is one of John Absolon’s finest figurative watercolours, likely painted around 1838. A chromolithograph titled Single was created after this watercolour in 1840 and published by Ackerman & Co. The present watercolour was once owned by Christopher Wood, author of Victorian Painters.

Guy Peppiatt Fine Art will show 100 British Watercolours & Drawings, including three works by Turner at his Mason’s Yard space in St. James’s, which is also where The Limner Company will be exhibiting a collection of portrait miniatures. A highlight this summer will be a Portrait miniature of Lady Betty (Elizabeth) Foster (née Hervey) (later Cavendish) (1757-1824); circa 1787 by George Engleheart (1750-1829), one of the great miniaturists of the Georgian age.

Drawings and watercolour specialist James Mackinnon (showing downstairs at 6 Duke Street, St. James’s) is showing a great rarity by Paul Sandby (Nottingham 1730-1809 London) with a highly unusual subject: Scottish festivities, probably the ancient celebration of a quarter-day [possibly Lughnasa, when a bull was sacrificed]. It dates from Sandby’s early stay in Scotland working on the survey following the defeat of the Young Pretender’s rebellion in 1745.

Rountree Tryon and Fine Art Commissions, both at 19 Ryder Street, St. James’s, present a joint exhibition, The New English Look. This plays upon the renewed interest in collecting and decorating with traditional British sporting art and family portraits. Among works at Rountree Tryon will be Davy Jones with the Hon. Anthony Mildmay up by the great equine artist Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S. (1878-1959), and with Fine Art Commissions, an oil on linen portrait of Alice Eve by Jamie Coreth (b. 1989) who painted the first official portrait of TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales as Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

To sign up for more news and hear about talks from Classic Art London, please email info@classicartlondon.uk.