View of an Italian hilltown with a horseman and peasants laboring

Nephew of the painter Sebastiano Ricci, Marco Ricci probably started his career in his uncle’s workshop in Venice. It has been suggested that he may have learned painting in tempera on kidskin in England during a stay with his uncle around 1712-1716. Upon his return to Venice, Ricci executed numerous landscapes in this technique, a genre in great demand among European collectors at the time (D. Succi and A. Delneri et al., Marco Ricci e il paesaggio veneto del Settecento, exhib. cat., Belluno, Palazzo Crepadonna, 1993, p. 21).