The Satyr and the Peasant

This 1725 Satyr and the Peasant at the Louvre illustrates the Aesop fable in which a satyr befriends a peasant but abandons him after the man blows on his hands both to warm them in cold and to cool his soup—proof that a creature who blows hot and cold cannot be trusted. The moral fable, familiar from Aesop and La Fontaine, was a staple of French decorative painting, and Ricci may have been addressing French collecting taste with this choice. Dating late in his career, the work demonstrates his range across mythological, religious, and genre narrative. The Louvre's holding documents the French institutional reception of Venetian Baroque, typically underrepresented in French royal collections compared to Flemish and Italian Renaissance painting.

The fable scene is rendered with Ricci's warm palette and lively characterization, the contrasting reactions of the satyr and peasant conveying the story's moral through expressive gesture and facial expression.