This hitherto unrecorded painting is a work from Sebastiano Ricci's early maturity. It was probably executed in the first decade of the 18th century when he had assimulated the influence of Luca Giordano and adopted some of the softness in brushstroke of Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (who was again resident in Venice from around 1701-8), but prior to the sophistication which is evident in his work after he left for England, circa 1711, and undertook the commissions for the Earl of Burlington of 1713, now at Chiswick House. The present painting can be compared stylistically to two versions of Bacchus and Ariadne, one in the Suida Manning collection, New York, which Daniels dates to the latter half of the decade (J. Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, 1976, p. 81, no. 271, fig. 158) and a second which was in the Mary Longari Dolci collection, Milan in 1953 which Arslan dates to circa 1706-7 (W. Arslan, Contributo a S. Ricci e ad A. Peruzzi, in Studies in the History of Art dedicated to W. E. Suida, 1959, p. 309, fig. 5; and J. Daniels op. cit., p. 73, no. 232, fig. 189). Further comparison can be made with the Bacchus and Ceres in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, dated before 1710 by Goodeson & Robertson (J. W. Goodeson & G. H. Robertson, 1967, pp. 137-8, pl. 37; and J. Daniels, op. cit., p. 22, no. 70, fig. 71)