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Lot 17*
Giovanni Costa(Italian, 1833-1903)If Love Be Dead, Why Doest Thou Rise, O Sun
Amended
26 March 2025, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£20,000 - £30,000
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Giovanni Costa (Italian, 1833-1903)
If Love Be Dead, Why Doest Thou Rise, O Sun
oil on panel
35.5 x 94.5cm (14 x 37 3/16in).
oil on panel
35.5 x 94.5cm (14 x 37 3/16in).
Footnotes
Exhibited
London, New Gallery, Summer Exhibition, 1890.
Literature
Olivia Rossetti Agresti, Giovanni Costa, London, 1904, p. 251.
Arnika Schmidt, Nino Costa (1826-1903) – Transnational Exchange in European Landscape Painting, Milan, 2016, p. 117, pl. 70, p. 11, illustrated.
According to Olivia Rossetti Agresti, the present work was painted during a stay that the artist made that summer at San Felice Circeo in 1887. This small town is on the south eastern flank of the Monte Circeo and overlooking the Gulf of Gaeta on the Italian coast to the south east of Rome. He was there with the American journalist William Stillman and family.
Costa's vantage point must have been taken from the most westerly point on the promontory of Monte Circeo or perhaps from one of the islands that lie off the Tyrrhenian coast, either Ponza or Zannone. From those points a clear view is offered of the seashore on either side of Monte Circeo, on the left side towards Sabaudia, and on the right towards Terracina. Therefore, the view – which is towards the east – shows, on the left side beyond a low shoreline, Monte Circeo itself; and then in the right side of the composition and at a greater distance, the Aurunci Mountains, which are part of the Appenines. Beyond the terrace which forms the foreground are the open waters of the Gulf of Gaeta.
Olivia Agresti explained the subject as showing 'a Dominican friar [who] has thrown his arms along the low parapet, and, racked with secret anguish, gazes at the scene, so beautiful in its melancholy grandeur, illuminated by the rising sun'. It seems that Costa's first intention with the work was simply to explore the beauty of the mountainous horizon at dawn as a pure landscape. In a letter to the painter Cristiano Banto, dated 22 July 1891, Costa reminisced as to how on an occasion in the middle of the night he had decided to transform the view into a subject picture. According to the letter, he had woken his maid servant and asked her to dress as a Franciscan friar so that she might model for the intended figure. One arm was to rest on the parapet of the terrace, while in her other hand was placed a closed book, as seen in the painting. Still the work was without a title, but – as Costa recalled – half an hour before its having been collected to be taken to London for the 1890 exhibition, the precise words for the catalogue caption came to him. The painting was sold at the New Gallery exhibition, and Costa felt certain that it was the title, which captures the essential sentiment of the work even if it has no larger significance, which ensured its success. (Costa's letter was first published by Francesca Dini, 'Per un profilo dell'artista. Inediti di Nino Costa', Nuova Antologia, (2208), 1998, pp. 143-82.)
Since the 1850s, Giovanni Costa had many English painter friends, including George Heming Mason, Frederic Leighton, William Blake Richmond and Walter Crane. On at least two occasions Costa visited England, staying with Mason at Wetley Abbey, and also with Leighton in London. An important friendship came about in the 1860s between Costa and George Howard (later the 9th Earl of Carlisle). Howard formed an important collection of Costa's paintings (still for the most part intact and displayed at Castle Howard in Yorkshire), and also encouraged friends of his to acquire works. In addition, Howard – assisted by Matthew Ridley Corbet and Edith Corbet – arranged for paintings by Costa to be shown in London. In 1882, Howard, in combination with another of Costa's British admirers, the Revd Stopford Brooke, helped organise and sponsored an exhibition of his paintings at the Fine Art Society in New Bond Street. In addition, Costa regularly showed works at the Grosvenor Gallery and subsequently at the New Gallery (at which venue the present painting was first seen).
We are grateful to Christopher Newall for compiling this catalogue entry.
Saleroom notices
The artist's dates should read 1826-1903.