Colnaghi London, in collaboration with Galerie Ary Jan, Paris and Kent Antiques, London, is pleased to present Beyond the Threshold: Revisiting Orientalism II, a major exhibition opening at Colnaghi London on 13 April 2026 and on view through 29 May 2026. Curated by Dr. Sophie Bostock, the exhibition brings together a significant group of Orientalist paintings and works on paper that collectively examine the visual and cultural frameworks of 19th-century Orientalism.
Structured around six distinctive curatorial pillars: Figures and Encounters: Genre Paintings and Portraits; Sacred Spaces; Trade Routes, Markets and Merchant Life; Urban Encounters; Distant Views; and The Harem, the exhibition offers an intimate exploration of artistic production shaped by travel, exchange and observation throughout the 19th century. These themes illuminate the diversity of artistic responses to the regions broadly defined as the Orient, while foregrounding the people, places and cultures with respect and accuracy.
Beyond the Threshold takes as its central motif the architectural and symbolic threshold: entrances, archways, gates, and liminal spaces that frame both access and distance. These compositional devices, recurrent in Orientalist painting, serve as points of transition, inviting the viewer to look beyond, into interior worlds, while simultaneously marking the boundaries between observer and subject. The exhibition’s title reflects this duality: it gestures both to the literal spaces depicted and to the critical act of revisiting these works today, with an awareness of their historical contexts and the asymmetries that informed them, while recognising the moments of genuine encounter they record.
The presentation includes works of exceptional quality and provenance by leading artists of the period. Among the highlights is Joaquín Sorolla’s La Sorpresa de Zahara, c. 1900 regarded by the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, as the Spanish-artist’s most important painting; Rudolf Ernst’s Chubuk Smoker, c. 1885 a refined example of the Austrian-born artist’s meticulous technique; and Gustav Bauernfeind’s At the Door of the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, c. 1889–1891 painted during the German-artist’s final years in the Middle East and distinguished by its architectural precision and ethnographic detail. Also featured are Charles Robertson’s The Shoes of the Faithful, 1879 set at the Mosque of Sultan Hasan in Cairo and Hermann D. S. Corrodi’s The Esplanade of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, c. 1876 a work of notable historical significance, once acquired directly from the artist by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Several works included in the exhibition have been widely published and exhibited, including at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and in the major international exhibition De Delacroix à Kandinsky: L’Orientalisme en Europe (2010–2011), which toured the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, attracting over three hundred thousand visitors from across the world.
Rooted in Colnaghi’s longstanding commitment to quality, provenance and art historical scholarship, Beyond the Threshold brings together artists of diverse nationalities and lived experiences, each engaging with the cultures they encountered in distinct ways. 19th-century Orientalist artists, working at the intersection of travel, scholarship and imagination, produced images that are as revealing of their own cultural frameworks as they are of the places they sought to depict.
Above all, the exhibition affirms the enduring power of art to foster curiosity, appreciation and connection across cultures, reminding us of the shared humanity that underlies artistic expression in all its forms.