Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints
- Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315
GIOVANNI, called NINO, COSTA (Rome 1826 - Marina di Pisa 1903)
STUDY OF LANDSCAPE AT BOCCA D'ARNO
Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on wove blue paper; 260 x 440 mm. The drawing is preparatory to the landscape which appears in the painting by Costa
Leda e il Cigno
(1900).
PROVENANCE: Costa's heirs; Liberio Merolli, Rome; Private collection.
EXHIBITIONS and LITERATURE:
Galleria Milano,
Il contesto dannunziano
, catalogue of the exhibition, Milan December 1981-February 1982; p. 17, reproduced, p. 52.
Trenta disegni di Nino Costa,
catalogue of the exhibition at the
Permanente
, Milan, 3-27 June 1982; no. 27, reproduced.
Galleria Narciso,
Nino Costa
, Turin 2-31 October 1982; no. 45.
Galleria Il Gotico,
Nino Costa
, Piacenza November 1982; no. 45.
Sala Margana,
Opere di Nino Costa
, exhibition catalogue, Rome, December 2004; pages 38-39, no 29, reproduced.
Il pittore e patriota Nino Costa. Novità e aggiornamenti
. Milan Hettabretz, 20-27 May 2011, no. 18 (Studio Paul Nicholls online catalogue).
Born in a wealthy family, when he was 12 Costa was introduced to the neo-classical painter Vincenzo Camuccini, who encouraged him to work from nature. Soon after was sent to the Jesuit college at Montefiascone, where remained for five years. He returned in Rome in 1843 and for two years attended the Collegio Bandinelli in the via Giulia. He then worked for short time in the studio of Camuccini before entering the schools of the
Accademia di San Luca
, where he studied under Francesco Coghetti, Francesco Podesti and Filippo Agricola. A committed patriot, Costa served with the Roman Legion against the Austrians in Northern Italy in 1848, joining the army of Giuseppe Garibaldi the following year in the unsuccessful defense of Rome against the French. He served as a volunteer in the war of 1859 and his enthusiasm for Italian unity was actively shown again in 1870, when he was the first to mount the breach in the assault of Rome near the Porta Pia.
Costa specialized in landscape paintings and was a particular influence on the
Macchiaioli
painters in Florence in the 1850’s and 1860’s. He also influenced many English artists working in Italy. In the Roman
Campagna
, in the early 1850’s, he met the English painters Charles Coleman, George Heming Mason and Frederic Leighton, with whom he was to become especially close. He also later became friendly with other English artists, including George Howard, Walter Crane, William Blake Richmond and Edward Burne-Jones. Costa’s studio on the Via Margutta in Rome was to become a meeting place for English painters visiting the city, and he was largely responsible for promoting the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters in Italy. Costa made several trips to England, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London from 1869 onwards, while in later years was invited to show his paintings at the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery. He was the head of an informal group of English landscape painters working in Italy - including Richmond, Howard and Matthew Ridley Corbet - who called themselves
The Etruscans
, and who found inspiration in sketching trips into the
Campagna
, guided and encouraged by Costa. In 1882 a large exhibition of Costa’s paintings was held at the Fine Art Society in London, achieving considerable success.
price: 1.400,00 euros