M arco R icci
Belluno 1676 - Venice 1730
9. A mountainous landscape with village
Pen, brown ink and wash
200 x 285 mm
Numbered on the verso in black chalk : A075
Provenance:
Almost certainly from Marco Ricci’s folio volume, the property of Dr. Benno Geiger which were dispersed in
lots at Sotheby’s on 8 Dec. 1920 lots. 259-72; Italico Brass, Venice; Venice, private collection; Florence, private
collection.
Exhibited:
Bassano del Grappa, Palazzo Sturm, Marco Ricci, 1 Sept. – 30 Nov. 1963, p.136 plate 107; Groningen, Pictura,
18 c. Eeuwse Venetiaanse Tekeningen, 24 Mei - 4 Juli, 1964, no. 77 p. 39, and the same exhibition and catalogue,
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans - van Beuningen, 29 Juli – 13 September, 1964.
Literature:
G.M. Pilo, Otto nuove acqueforti ed altre aggiunte grafiche a Marco Ricci, in Arte Veneta, XV, 1961, p. 172 .
Clearly influenced by Titian, this charming landscape is drawn on different levels with two peasants resting in the
left foreground. The village in the background is typical of the area of Cadore, where both Ricci and Titian were
from. It is almost certain that it comes from the album that consisted of eighty-eight leaves that was inscribed
Marci Ricci bellunensis pictoris eximii schedae. Other studies from the same source were bought at the time of the
1920 sale by The British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum Oxford 1 .
Painter and etcher. He was the nephew and pupil of Sebastiano Ricci, with whom he collaborated in the painting
of landscape in Florence in 1706-07 and numerous occasions thereafter. He probably went to Rome and also
to Milan, where an encounter with Magnasco was of particular importance. From 1708 to 1710 he worked in
England as a scenographer together with Pellegrini, and again from 1712 to 1716 with Sebastiano Ricci. On
his return trip to Venice, passing through Flanders and Low Countries, he visited Paris. Marco Ricci renewed
Venetian landscapes painting just as Sebastiano Ricci had renewed history painting. Essential to Marco’s art was
the example of Titian, with whom he had in common the direct visual experience of the landscape of the region of
Cadore. Also important was the influence of the works of Salvator Rosa, Dughet, and Pieter Mulier (Tempesta),
and Luca Carlevaris’ Venetian-Roman topographical views and paintings of ruins. In his romantic landscapes
Marco Ricci was the precursor of Piranesi. Ricci began to etch in 1723, but more numerous are the etchings made
by others after his designs. Giuseppe Zais was his pupil and direct follower, and Zuccarelli, Canaletto, and Guardi
all felt his influence. The grater part of his drawings, about three hundred, are at Windsor. Like the Windsor
collection of Sebastiano’s drawings they came from Joseph Smith, the English Consul in Venice.
( GG )