Q107447420

One of multiple Sebastiano Ricci canvases dated to around 1700 now held at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, this painting belongs to the first decade of what would become an extraordinarily productive international career. Ricci's early reputation was built partly on his gift for large-scale decoration and partly on his willingness to travel to meet patrons where they were rather than requiring them to come to Venice. Around 1700, before his major journeys to Vienna and London, Ricci was based primarily in northern Italy, refining the synthesis of Veronese's colourism, Correggio's sfumato, and Carracci classicism that would distinguish his mature work. The Gemäldegalerie's holdings of his paintings from this period are valuable precisely because they document a phase of stylistic consolidation that is less often studied than his celebrated English or late Venetian works. Scholarly interest in Ricci has grown considerably since the mid-twentieth century as his role in transmitting Venetian traditions to Northern Europe has been more fully understood.

Ricci typically begins with a warm ground that remains active in the final painting through passages of thin, transparent paint. His compositional structure at this period is relatively traditional — figures arranged parallel to the picture plane in a shallow stage space — but the surface handling already shows the spontaneity and light touch that will characterise his Rococo phase. Glazes over wet impasto create a variety of surface effects from matte to luminous within the same canvas.