SEBASTIANO RICCI (Belluno, 1659 - Venice, 1734) MARCO RICCI (for the landscape piece) (Belluno, 1676 - Venice, 1730) Vision of San Bruno Oil on canvas, 100X126 cm Provenance: Venice, collection of Count Algarotti? Bologna, Marabini Collection Milan, private collection Bibliography: Cini Foundation Photographic Archive, no. 434205 R. Pallucchini, Giunte a Sebastiano Ricci, in Proporzioni, 1950, pp. 212-215, Tav. CCXL J. Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, Hove 1976, p. 18, n. 58 J. Daniels, The Complete Works of Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 1976, pp. 96-97, n. 116-18, n. 58 A. Scarpa, Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 2006, p. 360, n. P/66 The work was attributed to Sebastiano Ricci by Roberto Longhi, made known in 1950 by Rodolfo Pallucchini and published by Annalisa Scarpa (cf. Pallucchini 1950- Scarpa 2006). Having said this, it is essential to immediately emphasise the high quality of the painting, recognising it in the image archived by the Cini foundation, which in turn can probably be identified with the canvas belonging to the Algarotti collection (cf. Scarpa 2006). This premise is necessary to mark the qualitative distance between the painting under examination and the version that recently appeared on the American market, which reveals uncertain sprezzatura and scholastic execution. The meticulous analysis of the Marabini canvas, in fact, reveals a drawing and brushstroke sensitivity worthy of the master, while the style indicates a date to the first five years of the 18th century, when the artist, after his sojourns in Bologna, Rome and Lombardy, put into practice an astonishing pictorial handling, which certainly evokes the models of Bologna and Rome, but masterfully combines them with the chromatic and atmospheric sensitivity of the lagoon, as Luigi Lanzi has already well observed: 'The forms of his figures have beauty, nobility, grace on the manner of Paolo (Veronese), the attitudes are beyond the common way natural, ready, varied - the compositions are directed by truth and directed by common sense. Although good in the handling of the brush, he did not abuse it, as many have done, to celerity; his figures are drawn with precision, and detached from the backgrounds, which he often tints with a beautiful blue, on which they triumph' (cf. L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia, III, Bassano 1809, pp. 274-276). The outcome of this fruitful training period, in fact, led the painter to conceive a skilful synthesis of decorativism and substantial painting, marked by draftsmanship and strokes of light suited to narrative. Moreover, in our case, it is possible to judge the overall harmoniousness of the landscape piece painted by Marco Ricci, a painter who had already proved his talent by assisting Sebastiano in the frescoes of Palazzo Taverna in Rome (cf. Pallucchini 1950). In conclusion, Pallucchini's words come in handy again when he asserts that in Venice during the early years of the 18th century: 'Ricci resolved that varied culture, of which he became the diffuser and depositary at the same time, on a distinctive plane of colour, which had become frank and luminous'. We thank Giorgio Fossaluzza for confirming the attribution.