Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734)

Sebastiano Ricci was a leading figure in the Venetian painting revival of the early eighteenth century — a decorator and history painter of great energy whose work in palaces and churches across Europe helped establish Venice's reputation as the era's most vital artistic centre. His 1724 portrait by Rosalba Carriera, held in the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, belongs to a tradition of artists portraying fellow artists that had run from Raphael through to the modern era. Ricci and Carriera were both Venetian, both internationally celebrated, and both central figures in the early Rococo moment when Venice exported its visual culture across the continent. Carriera's rendering of a painter she knew personally may carry greater candour than her portraits of noble or diplomatic clients — the freedom of a professional peer-to-peer encounter. The Karlsruhe provenance suggests the work entered the Baden collections through the standard routes of Italian art acquisition.

Portraying a fellow painter gave Carriera licence for a more searching characterisation than was possible with clients who expected comfortable flattery. The eyes of Ricci, as she renders them, would carry the particular intelligence she recognised in a master of very different but equally ambitious artistic practice.