A Highly Important Portrait Miniature of Marco Ricci, full face in embroidered gold coat, lace cravat, blue silk cloak falling over his right shoulder, full bottomed curling powdered wig

Marco Ricci (1676-1730), Venetian painter and nephew and pupil of Sebastiano Ricci (see lot 227). Marco is thought to have worked with his uncle in Florence between 1706 and 1707 and later to have visited Rome and Milan where he may have known Allesandro Magnasco who influenced his work. He travelled to England in 1708 with Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (who married Rosalba Carriera's sister, Angela) by Lord Manchester where they worked together on stage scenery. Marco returned to Venice in 1710 and in 1712 travelled with his uncle via The Netherlands to England where they remained for several years. On their return to Venice in 1717, Marco worked with his uncle on landscape backgrounds for religious works including the Miracle of Moses and also to have executed small landscapes in tempera on leather. He was one of the first Venetian etchers of the 18th Century.

Another portrait of Marco Ricci, a pastel painted in 1724, is in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (illustrated in Sani, op. cit., pl. 135).