Lorenzo Costa

Lorenzo Costa was a painter of the Italian Renaissance whose pictures combine gentle, graceful figures with soft landscapes and clear colour. His altarpieces are calm and balanced, and his later mythological paintings have an almost fairytale quality.

He was born in Ferrara in 1460 and moved to Bologna in his early twenties, where he worked for the ruling Bentivoglio family and painted frescoes in the church of San Giacomo Maggiore. After Andrea Mantegna’s death he moved to Mantua to become court painter to the Gonzaga. There he painted two pictures for the private study of Isabella d’Este, including the allegory of her court now in the Louvre, and the Reign of Comus.

The Concert, a small panel of three singers gathered round a table, is one of his most appealing works and hangs in the National Gallery in London. His sons also became painters. He died in Mantua in 1535.