Christi Himmelfahrt

Ricci's Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension of Christ), dated 1702, belongs to his early religious output produced during his travels through northern Italy, Vienna, and beyond. The Ascension was a standard subject for altarpieces and ceiling decorations in Catholic churches, depicting the moment Christ rises bodily into heaven forty days after the Resurrection. Ricci's early approach to this subject shows his Baroque inheritance — dynamic upward movement, astonished apostles below, heavenly light above — already inflected by his characteristic lightening of tone and loosening of touch that would define his mature style.

The composition is organized on a vertical axis, with Christ ascending into a blaze of golden light while the apostles below gesture upward in wonder and awe. Ricci uses strong contrasts between the earthly figures and the luminous heavenly zone.