The painting of St. Mark was recently bought jointly by the two galleries from a German private collection and it has gone on display for the first time in over 30 years as the centrepiece of Colnaghi’s exhibition Picture in Focus which runs at 15 Old Bond Street, W1 until January 30.
St. Mark is one of only four known surviving religious paintings by Hals. It is part of a series of paintings of the Evangelists formerly in the Hermitage.
St. Mark is now with Colnaghi-Lilian and on offer “in excess of £5m”, St. John is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in California and St. Luke and St. Matthew are in the Museum of Western and Oriental Art, Odessa.
The Colnaghi painting was rediscovered in the 1970s in the guise of a Portrait of a Gentleman under a layer of 19th century overpaint. After its London showing St. Mark goes on show at Bernheimer’s gallery in Munich to coincide with a Frans Hals exhibition at the city’s Kunsthalle.
