Marco Ricci (6 June 1676 – 21 January 1730) was an
Italian Baroque painter
Italian Baroque art was a very prominent part of the Baroque art in painting, sculpture and other media, made in a period extending from the end of the sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries. The movement began in Italy, and despite later curr ...
.
Early years
He was born at
Belluno
Belluno (; ; ) is a town and province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Located about north of Venice, Belluno is the Capital (political), capital of the province of Belluno and the most important city in the Eastern Dolomites region. W ...
and received his first instruction in art from his uncle,
Sebastiano Ricci
Sebastiano Ricci (1 August 165915 May 1734) was an Italian Baroque painter of the late Baroque period in Venetian painting. About the same age as Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Piazzetta, and an elder contemporary of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Tie ...
, likely in Milan in 1694–6.
[Giacometti, Margherita. In: ''The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century.'' Martineau, Jane; and Andrew Robinson, eds. ]Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
: New Haven and London, 1994. He left for Venice with his uncle in 1696, but had to flee the city.
He visited
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, where he was for some time occupied in painting perspective views.
[Bryan, Michael; and George Stanley. A biographical and critical dictionary of painters and engravers: with a list of ciphers, monograms, and marks. G. Bell, 1878.] In 1706–7, he worked with his uncle on the decoration of the Sala d'Ercole in the
Palazzo Fenzi, located in Florence.
Ricci's propensity for collaboration with other artists makes his early style difficult to trace, but it is generally agreed that his influences included
Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in I ...
,
Gaspard Dughet, and
Salvator Rosa, along with a naturalistic style of landscape painting practiced in the
Veneto
Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...
in the 17th and early 18th centuries.
[Barcham, William. "Townscapes & Landscapes". In: ''The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century.'' Martineau, Jane; and Andrew Robinson, eds. Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1994.] Closer in time, and known personally by Ricci, was the Genoese painter
Alessandro Magnasco, whose handling of loose paint and his long, thin, wiry figures are echoed in a number of Ricci's early canvases.
Stays in England
Through the prompting of
Charles Montagu, 4th Earl of Manchester, and British ambassador to Venice, in late 1708 Ricci traveled to England, and on his way there he stopped in the Netherlands to study Dutch landscape painting. In England, he frequently collaborated with the artist
Pellegrini in the staging of Italian works at the
Queen's Theatre in
Haymarket. The pair painted stage scenery for two Italian operas, ''Pyrrhus and Demetrius'' by
Alessandro Scarlatti
Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti (2 May 1660 – 22 October 1725) was an Italian Baroque music, Baroque composer, known especially for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the most important representative of the Neapolitan sch ...
and
Nicola Haym, and ''Camilla'' by
Antonio Maria Bononcini and
Silvio Stampiglia, with English libretti by
Owen McSwiney.
With Pellegrini, he executed six large mythological canvases for
Burlington House
Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in Mayfair, London. It was originally a private English Baroque and then Neo-Palladian mansion owned by the Earl of Burlington, Earls of Burlington. It was significantly expanded in the mid-19th cent ...
.
Ricci returned to Venice in 1711, but came back to England with his uncle Sebastiano the following year, with whom he collaborated on several commissions.
During his time in England, Marco Ricci also painted several landscapes,
capriccios, and the wry painting ''Opera Rehearsal'' for
Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle
Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, PC (c. 1669 – 1 May 1738) was a British nobleman, peer, and statesman.
Charles Howard was the eldest son of Edward Howard, 2nd Earl of Carlisle, and inherited his title on the death of his father in 169 ...
.
His production as a landscapist can be divided into four categories: alpine views or pastorals, violent country storms, ruins, and scenes of villages or courtyards.
While the medium of many of his works was oil on canvas, about half of his output, smaller in dimension, was tempera applied to goatskin.
Venice
Marco Ricci returned to Venice in 1716, living with his uncle there until his death. Ricci's output in the 1720s was prodigious, and his production encompassed landscapes, capriccios, gouaches on vellum, drawings of stage designs and caricatures.
He collaborated with Sebastiano on monumental figurative paintings.
From 1723, Marco Ricci etched several plates from his own designs, consisting of views and landscapes, with ruins and figures, including a notable set of twenty-three prints which anticipate
Piranesi. Important patrons of Ricci in Venice were
Consul Smith and
Zanetti the Elder.
Marco Ricci can be regarded as the initiator of a new Venetian landscape style, which became an immediate international success. He died in
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
in 1730. Among his pupils were
Domenico Bernardo Zilotti and
Giuseppe Valeriani.
[Selfridge-Field, Eleanor. ''A new chronology of Venetian opera and related genres, 1660–1760.'' Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2007.]
Gallery
Accademia - Paesaggio con viandanti - Marco ricci (cerchia).jpg, 'Landscape with Mountain and Figures.'' Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
Accademia - La cascata - Marco ricci Cat.454 (convento di San Giorgio Maggiore).jpg, ''Waterfall'', Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
File:Maria Giustina Turcotti caricature.jpg, Caricature of opera singer Maria Giustina Turcotti, Print Room, Windsor
Notes
References
*
*Barcham, William (1994). "Townscapes & Landscapes". In: ''The glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century.'' Martineau, Jane; and Andrew Robinson, eds. Yale University Press: New Haven and London.
*Bryan, Michael; and George Stanley (1878). ''A biographical and critical dictionary of painters and engravers: with a list of ciphers, monograms, and marks.'' G. Bell.
*Giacometti, Margherita (1994). In: ''The glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century.'' Martineau, Jane; and Andrew Robinson, eds. Yale University Press: New Haven and London.
*Levey, Michael (1994). "An Introduction to 18th-Century Venetian Art." In: ''The glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century.'' Martineau, Jane; and Andrew Robinson, eds. Yale University Press: New Haven and London.
*Pedrocco, Filippo (2002). ''Visions of Venice: Paintings of the 18th Century.'' Tauris Parke Books: London and New York.
*Wittkower, Rudolf (1999). Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600–1750: The Late Baroque, 1675–1750. New Haven: Yale University Press.
External links
*Bryan, Michael; and George Stanley. ''A biographical and critical dictionary of painters and engravers: with a list of ciphers, monograms, and marks.'' G. Bell, 1878
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricci, Marco
1676 births
People from Belluno
17th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
18th-century Italian painters
Italian engravers
Italian vedutisti
Italian Baroque painters
1730 deaths
18th-century Italian male artists