Advertisement for Costantini's Old Master reproductions, "Handbook for Lancashire", 1880

Emilio Costantini (1842–1926) was an Italian painter, a prominent art dealer, and a professor in the Istituto d'Arte di Firenze.[1] Established in Florence, he was originally from Genzano di Roma.[2]

Costantini was in regular contact with important art dealers of the time, such as Herbert P. Horne and Bernard Berenson; notably, through Berenson, he sold Raphael's Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami to Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1898.[2] The correspondence between Berenson and Gardner reveals that, initially, the former had little confidence in the honesty of Emilio Costantini and his son and collaborator David Costantini ("I warn you that more and more impudently do the Italian dealers trade in forgeries, and the greatest of this ring are the Costantinis"[3]), but this opinion was later reconsidered.[2] He was also in contact with important London-based dealers such as Edgar Vincent and Walter Dowdeswell.[2]

Costantini was well-regarded in London society as an artist who specialised in copies of old oil paintings. From 1888 to 1891, he produced fourteen watercolour copies of important masterpieces, mostly Italian, for the Arundel Society.[2] In 1887, he travelled to Viseu, Portugal, to make one such copy, of Grão Vasco's Saint Peter.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Mariz, Vera (2018). ""A magnificent work": O entusiasmo da Inglaterra Vitoriana em torno do São Pedro da Sé de Viseu, obra-prima do Grão Vasco" [«A magnificent work»: Victorian England's enthusiasm for the Saint Peter of Viseu Cathedral, a masterpiece by Grão Vasco]. Artis – Revista de História da Arte e Ciências do Património (in Portuguese) (5): 120–129. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Cappellini, Patrizia (2018). "Trading Old Masters in Florence 1890–1914: heritage protection and the Florentine art trade in Post-Unification Italy". Journal of the History of Collections. 31 (2): 363–371. doi:10.1093/jhc/fhy030. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  3. ↑ Craven, Wayne (2005). Stanford White: Decorator in Opulence and Dealer in Antiquities. New York, Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press. p. 72. ISBN 9780231133449.


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