Placido Costanzi Rome 1702-1759

Placido Costanzi championed the classicizing trend in early eighteenth- century Roman painting, and his style betrays his close study of Raphael, Annibale Carracci and Domenichino. The present pair likely date from around 1750, at the same time as his Clelia before Porsenna in the Palazzo Reale in Turin (see S. Rudolph, ed., La Pittura dell '700 a Roma, 1983, fig. 232). The Earl of Radnor may have acquired the paintings directly from the artist in Rome.

Provenance

Jacob, 2nd Earl of Radnor, by 1814.
Jacob, 6th Earl of Radnor; Christie's, London, 27 July 1945, lot 8 (to Nabin).
Andrea Busiri Vici, Rome, by 1959.
with Colnaghi, London, by 1974.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 15 January 1993, lot 96.
with Newhouse Galleries, New York.

Literature

Catalogue of the Pictures at Longford Castle, 1898, p. 17.
Helen Matilda, Countess of Radnor, Catalogue of the Pictures in the Collection of the Earl of Radnor, 1910, p. 85, nos. 128-29 (second edition published in 1928).
A. Busiri Vici, Jan Frans van Bloemen, Orizzonte e l'origine del paesaggio romano settecentesco, 1973, p. 140, illustrated p. 144, figs. 169-70.
G. Sestieri, Repertorio della Pittura Romana della Fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Turin, 1994, I, p. 66, II, illustrated nos. 365-66.

Exhibited

Rome, Il Settecento a Roma, 1959, nos. 170-1.
London, Colnaghi, Paintings by Old Masters, 1974, nos. 30 and 32.