The Costabili collection or Costabili Gallery was a large art collection in

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

in the 19th century, mainly consisting of Ferrarese art. Works from the collection were purchased by mid and late 19th-century art collectors like

Giovanni Morelli Giovanni Morelli (25 February 1816 – 28 February 1891) was an Italian art critic and political figure. As an art historian, he developed the "Morellian" technique of scholarship, identifying the characteristic "hands" of painters through ...

Austen Henry Layard Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...

and

Charles Eastlake Charles Locke Eastlake (11 March 1836 – 20 November 1906) was a British architect and furniture designer. His uncle, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA (born in 1793), was a Keeper of the National Gallery, from 1843 to 1847, and from 1855 its fi ...

, eventually ending in many of the major collections of art around the world. A significant group of paintings ended up in the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current di ...

in London.

History

The collection was created by Marchese Giovanni Battista Costabili Contain and continued by his grand-nephew Marchese Giovanni Costabili Contain. By the late 1850s, the collection was deteriorating, with many works in poor condition, and Marchese started selling works to pay off his debts. His son Marchese Alfonso Costabili Contain eventually sold the remainder of the collection in 1885. The Costabili collection also included a library with some 400 manuscripts, 400

incunable An incunable or incunabulum (: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. The specific date is essentially arbitrary, but the ...

s, and 800 books from the

Aldine Press The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was d ...

. It was sold in four sales in 1858 and 1859.

Selected works

* ''Still life with plates'' by

Paolo Antonio Barbieri Paolo Antonio Barbieri (1603–1649) was a Bolognese painter of the Italian Baroque. He was the brother of Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, usually known as Il Guercino. He was born at Cento, a village near Bologna. The subjects of his pictures are ...

, sold by Sotheby's in 2008 for $181,000. * ''Saint Francis'' by

Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli ( ; ) or simply known as Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 1 ...

, now in the National Gallery * ''Deposizione '' by

Baldassarre Carrari the Elder Baldassarre Carrari the Elder (il Vecchio) was an Italian painter who worked at Forlì about the year 1354. Biography He is supposed to be the author of a fragment of a series of paintings which once adorned the Santa Maria in Schiavonia church. ...

* ''Santa Caterina martirizzata'' by Michele Coltellini, now in the

Musée Jacquemart-André The Musée Jacquemart-André (, ) is a private museum located at 158 Boulevard Haussmann in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris. The museum was created from the private home of Édouard André (art collector), Édouard An ...

* ''Saint Sebastian'' by

Lorenzo Costa Lorenzo Costa (1460 – 5 March 1535) was an Italian painter. Biography He was born at Ferrara, but moved to Bologna by his early twenties, and was probably influenced by the Bolognese school, Bolognese School. However, many artists worked in ...

, now in the

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister The (, ''Old Masters Gallery'') in Dresden, Germany, displays around 750 paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It includes major Italian Renaissance painting, Italian Renaissance works as well as Dutch Golden Age painting, Dutch and F ...

* ''Saint Jerome'' by

Bono da Ferrara Bono da Ferrara or Bono Ferrarese (active 1441–1461) was an Italians, Italian painter of the early-Renaissance period. Biography Bono described himself as a pupil of Pisanello,https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/bono-da-ferrara and he ...

, now in the National Gallery * ''Madonna in adoration of the Christ Child'' by Ortolano Ferrarese, now in the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

* ''Madonna and Child with the Donor, Pietro de' Lardi, Presented by Saint Nicholas'' by Master G.Z., now in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

* Unidentified work by

Ludovico Mazzolino Ludovico Mazzolino (1480 – c. 1528) - also known as Mazzolini da Ferrara, Lodovico Ferraresa, and Il Ferrarese - was an Italian Renaissance painter active in Ferrara and Bologna. Biography He was born and died in Ferrara. He appears to hav ...

, now in the

Wawel Castle The Wawel Royal Castle (; ''Zamek Królewski na Wawelu'') and the Wawel Hill on which it sits constitute the most historically and culturally significant site in Poland. A fortified residency on the Vistula River in Kraków, it was established o ...

in Poland * ''Madonna and Child; Saint John the Baptist; Saint Jerome'' by

Sano di Pietro Sano may refer to: Geography * Sano, Kentucky, U.S. * Sano, Tochigi, Japan * Monte Sano Mountain, a mountain in Alabama, United States ** Monte Sano State Park * Wai Sano, a volcano in Flores, Indonesia Fiction * Sano (''Rurouni Kenshin''), a ch ...

, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art * ''Virgin and Child with Saints George and Anthony'' by

Pisanello Pisanello (), born Antonio di Puccio Pisano or Antonio di Puccio da Cereto, also erroneously called Vittore Pisano by Giorgio Vasari, was one of the most distinguished painters of the early Italian Renaissance and Quattrocento. He was acclaimed b ...

, now in the National Gallery * Unidentified work by

Ercole Setti Ercole Setti (c.1530–1618) was an Italian engraver and painter of the late-Renaissance period. Setti was born in Modena. His pen-and-ink drawings show a fine draughtsmanship without requiring cross-hatching. Like the later Gaetano Zompini, h ...

, now in the

Galleria Estense The Galleria Estense is an art gallery in the heart of Modena, centred around the collection of the House of Este, d’Este family: rulers of Duchy of Modena and Reggio, Modena, Reggio and Duchy of Ferrara, Ferrara from 1289 to 1796. Located on ...

* ''Saint Bernardino'' by

Benvenuto Tisi Benvenuto Tisi (; 1481September 6, 1559), also known as Il Garofalo (), was a Late-Renaissance-Mannerist Italian painter of the School of Ferrara. Garofalo's career began attached to the court of the Duke d'Este. His early works have been desc ...

, now in the Alberto Saibene collection in Milan, and two other saints and a ''The Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints John the Baptist and Peter and an Angel holding back a Curtain'' by the same painter * ''Saint Jerome'' by

Cosimo Tura Cosimo is the Italian form of the Greek name ''Kosmas'' (latinised as ''Cosmas''). Cosimo may refer to: Characters * Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, hero of Italo Calvino's 1957 novel ''The Baron in the Trees'' Given name Medici family * Cosimo ...

, now in the National Gallery, and a ''Portrait of a Young Man'' in the Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Cosimo Tura Portrait of a Young Man (1450-52).jpg, ''Portrait of a Young Man'' by

File:Pisanello 014.jpg, ''Virgin and Child with Saints George and Anthony'' by

History

Selected works

Notes

Further reading