GIOVANNI COSTA 



" Sunrise at Bocca d' Arno," in the National Gallery ; 

 the " Fiume Morto," belonging to Mrs. Albert Rutson 

 a romantic scene of wooded gorge, sleeping waters, 

 and purple mountain ; and Mr. Douglas Freshfield's 

 " Autumn Morning in the Mountains of Carrara," a 

 view of the same hills veiled in white mist, with the 

 rising sun faintly flushing the slopes and a single 

 pine-tree standing out on the russet plain, waiting 

 for the springtime that will not always tarry. 



In 1862 Costa went to Paris, where his works 

 met with general admiration from the masters of 

 the Fontainebleau school. Corot hailed him as a 

 comrade, and embraced him in the name of Hobbema 

 as the worthy successor of the great landscape-painters 

 of old. He visited Rousseau at Barbizon, and con- 

 versed with Millet, whose serious and noble character 

 impressed him deeply. It was then, in the woods of 

 Marlotte, that he painted his life-size figure of a nude 

 nymph at the fountain, which he kept in his studio 

 until he died, always altering and improving it. As a 

 rule, it must be owned, Costa's large figures were not 

 successful, but when this " Ninfa nel Bosco " was ex- 

 hibited, after his death, the Roman critics declared it 

 to be the painter's masterpiece. In 1863 Costa went 

 to England at Leighton's invitation, and the two 

 friends together visited Mason in his Staffordshire 

 home, and cheered that sorely tried artist in his 



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