25 July 2022
Colnaghi & Endava Launch New Virtual Experience
London; 25 July, 2022 | Colnaghi, the oldest art dealership in the world, founded in 1760, announces the launch of The
Colnaghi Virtual Experience, its new, cutting-edge digital collaboration with Endava, a leading next-generation technology service provider. The first project, which launched on July 3
rd, 2022, focuses on Colnaghi’s presentation of
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a painting with remarkable provenance, painted by Orazio Gentileschi in the 17th Century.
The virtual art gallery enables existing clients and new users not familiar with Colnaghi to view Old Masters in a virtual space. It fuses audio, video, documentation, and x-ray scans with interactive user elements, demonstrating how Web 3.0 technology can add to the viewer’s experience and enhance how we see, interpret and engage with works of art.
Jorge Coll, CEO and owner of Colnaghi, said, "
Colnaghi consistently works to uphold our historic firm’s commitment to connoisseurship, whilst making quality art accessible to both existing and new clients. The virtual experience we have launched with Endava moves this mission into a new dimension, enabling the next generation of art lovers to experience and become familiar with the Colnaghi brand, thanks to the incredible technological and UX capabilities offered by Endava. I can’t wait for you to experience it, and to unlock the story of this important work by Orazio Gentileschi."
The new presentation makes a deep technical analysis of the canvas possible. Of particular interest are the high-resolution x-rays displayed within the virtual experience, which mean that viewers can perceive moments, known as pentimenti, where the artist changed his mind during the process of painting. For example, where he changed the position of the virgin’s hand, and where the location of the linen clasped by the Christ Child was moved. Visitors can also explore details of the provenance and literature around this new Colnaghi painting, including text detailing its critical history, and the movement of the canvas through some of the most prestigious English private collections into the ownership of J. Paul Getty.
Thomas Bedenk, Vice President of Extended Reality at Endava added, “
Exciting technologies such as virtual experiences and the metaverse are being explored extensively at the moment. We’re very pleased to be able to launch this project with Colnaghi to demonstrate the value of these advances in the art world. Being able to work with them to create a whole new understanding and way to experience Old Masters from anywhere around the globe is a fascinating opportunity.”
The Colnaghi Virtual Experience launched on July 3rd, 2022, with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt simultaneously on physical view at Colnaghi, 26 Bury Street, London.
Orazio Gentileschi Biography
An important master of the Italian Baroque, Gentileschi was born in Tuscany in 1563. He spent much of his career in Rome, where he was able to study at first hand the works of Caravaggio. Orazio combined Caravaggio’s naturalism and drama, with his own sense of refinement and strong feeling for colour and line.
On leaving Rome, the artist worked in Genoa and in France, before arriving in England is 1626, where he was assumed into the household of King Charles I’s first minister and close friend, the dashing George Villiers, 1
st Duke of Buckingham. Orazio was to remain in England until his death in 1639, and it was during this time that he completed no less than four versions of this much loved composition, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.
All three other versions are now in the collections of leading European institutions. Orazio will have worked with a cartoon for these versions, adapting, altering, finessing, and perfecting the design as he progressed. Images of the other versions can be found in Birmingham, the Louvre and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; each can be viewed for the first time in one space, within this Virtual Experience, alongside a video detailing the Romantic early provenance of the Colnaghi painting.
ABOUT COLNAGHI
Founded in 1760, Colnaghi is one of the oldest commercial art galleries in the world and one of the few to specialize in works of art from antiquity to the present day. Since the late-nineteenth century, Colnaghi has been a leading dealership in Old Master paintings and sculpture, prints and drawings, selling masterpieces to the greatest collectors and museums of the Gilded Age. With galleries today in London, New York, and Madrid, Colnaghi deals in rare objects from the Ancient World and the finest Old Master, Modern, and contemporary masterpieces, providing its clients with expert advice and opportunities to build collections. Colnaghi is directed by CEO and owner Jorge Coll. Carlos A. Picón oversees Colnaghi New York.
For more information,
www.colnaghi.com
ABOUT ENDAVA
Endava is reimagining the relationship between people and technology. By leveraging next generation
technologies, our agile, multi-disciplinary teams provide a combination of product & technology strategies, intelligent experiences, and world-class engineering to help clients become digital, experience-driven businesses by assisting them in their journey from idea generation to development and deployment of products, platforms and solutions. Endava collaborates with its clients, seamlessly integrating with their teams, catalysing ideation, and delivering robust solutions.
Endava has over 11,000 employees, as of March 2022, located in close-to-client locations in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Singapore and nearshore delivery centres in Central Europe and Latin America.
For more information, visit
www.endava.com
MEDIA CONTACTS
Colnaghi
Eleanor Taylor / eleanor@colnaghi.com +44 (0) 20 7491 74 08
Endava
Hotwire Global: endavaUK@hotwireglobal.com