Giovanni Costa developed a distinctive style of painting, as well as a carefully considered philosophy on art and nature. Few other Italian painters of his generation understood as he did the awe-inspiring beauty of the unadorned landscape or the feelings of sentiment, which attach an individual to his native countryside. Costa's circle of English friends encouraged him to exhibit paintings in London, intermittently from 1869 at the Royal Academy, then from 1877 at the Grosvenor Gallery, and subsequently at the New Gallery. In 1882, George Howard and Stopford Brooke were the moving spirits behind an ambitious exhibition of Costa's paintings at the Fine Art Society in New Bond Street; this event was a critical and commercial success, and for a while the Italian painter's reputation was secure. The following year in Rome several of Costa's friends and admirers formed themselves into a group which was to be known as the Etruscan school.
The artist's studio, 1903-4 (inventory number 32) Rev. Stopford A Brooke; by descent to: Mrs Cecilia Binham; by descent to: H B Jacks; to 1998
London, Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, 1903-4, number 108 Rome, Circolo della Stampa, Nino Costa ed i suoi amici inglesi, 1982, number 8