Christus am Ölberg

This 1730 Christ on the Mount of Olives at the Kunsthistorisches Museum depicts the Agony in the Garden during the final night before the Crucifixion, when Jesus prays while his disciples sleep and an angel descends to strengthen him. Painted when Ricci was in his late seventies, it demonstrates his sustained creative vitality in his final years. The dramatic nocturnal light, the contrast between Christ's solitary anguish and the sleeping apostles, and the angel's luminous descent all reflect the theatrical sensibility Ricci had developed across six decades of painting. The Kunsthistorisches Museum's Ricci holdings document the sustained Austrian interest in Venetian Baroque painting throughout the eighteenth century.

The nocturnal Garden setting is dramatically illuminated by angelic light, Ricci's warm palette creating vivid contrasts between the radiant angel and the shadowed, anguished figure of Christ.