Our painting depicting the Tyrrhenian coast at Bocca d'Arno (the mount of the Arno) in Marina di Pisa, the mouth of the Tuscan river, with the crest of the Apuan Alps in the background.

On the seashore beyond the beach, half hidden among the tufts of buckwheat, a deer peeps out while the presence of the Arno river among the trees is highlighted by a fishing net supported by a 'straightedge'. Across the river in the morning mist the Apuan Alps stand out with a pale sun rising behind them.

Costa mentioned for the first time the magnificent panorama of the Apuan Alps when he was able to see them from the ship on which he had embarked in 1859 in Civitavecchia to go to Genoa to participate in the Second War of Independence. That panorama remained in his heart and he returned several times to those surroundings to paint.

In 1885 he bought a house in Bocca d'Arno where he lived for long periods and where he died in 1903. Friends and colleagues of the 'Etruscan School' tell of visiting him regularly. George Howard, one of Costa's most assiduous friends in frequenting the house, bought several paintings from his colleague painter with the subject of the Tuscan coast and the Apuan Alps, one of which was 'Bocca d'Arno' exhibited at the New Gallery in London in 1889.

Several times Costa portrayed the beloved Pisan landscape in various compositions, suffice it to mention the "Awakening of Nature" of 1875-77, "Between summer and autumn", today in Castle Howard. The profile of the mountains similar to that of our painting also appears in the later 'Leda with the Swan' of 1900.

Costa sold several of his paintings to English friends and clients in the various London exhibitions in which he took part and it is very likely, also given the English frame, that our painting is one of those now back in Italy.