Virgin Mary in Glory with Archangel Gabriel and S. Eusebius, S. Sebastian und S. Rochus

Completed in 1724, this large-scale altarpiece exemplifies the mature devotional painting Sebastiano Ricci produced during the height of his European fame. Ricci had spent years working across England, France, and the Low Countries before returning to Venice, where commissions like this one demonstrated the city's enduring appetite for luminous, theatrically arranged religious canvases. The subject brings together the Virgin in heavenly glory with Archangel Gabriel and three intercessory saints — Eusebius, Sebastian, and Roch — whose presence signals a probable civic or confraternal function. Sebastian and Roch were patron saints invoked against plague, suggesting the work may have been commissioned in the aftermath of the devastating 1720–21 plague that swept Marseille and threatened northern Italy. Ricci's composition draws from Veronese and Correggio while infusing the scene with the lighter, airier sensibility that would define Venetian Rococo. The University of Turin's collection preserves the painting as evidence of how sacred imagery absorbed new aesthetic fashions without abandoning Counter-Reformation theological programmes.

Ricci builds the composition on a diagonal axis rising from the earthly saints at lower register to the airborne Virgin above, a spatial device inherited from Baroque ceiling painting translated onto a vertical canvas. His brushwork is confident and swift, modelling drapery through warm highlights over mid-tone grounds rather than laboured underpainting. The palette — cool silvers and blues in the heavenly zone contrasting with warmer ochres below — reinforces the theological hierarchy between mortal and divine realms.