Lot Essay
The legend of the fourth century Saint Mary Egyptiaca was already current in a written form as early as the sixth century; it was elaborated during the following centuries and is related in detail by Jacopo da Varagine in the Leggenda Aurea. Saint Mary became a prostitute in Alexandria at the age of twelve and was converted to Christianity in Jerusalem seventeen years later. Renouncing her former life, she retired in penance to the deserts beyond the Jordan, remaining there undisturbed until she was discovered forty-seven years later by a priest named Zosimus. She requested him to tell nobody and to return a year later with the holy sacrament. This he did and she tearfully confessed and took communion. On his second visit, Zosimus found her dead with a message written in the sand asking him to bury her.
Although the worship of Saint Mary of Egypt was fairly widespread in Italy and France, images of her are relatively rare, especially in comparison with those of her namesake the Magdalen, whose story forms so close a parallel. The two saints are often depicted together and it may not be a coincidence that of all the other pictures in Ricci's oeuvre, that most closely related to the present work is the (albeit much smaller) 'Communion of Saint Mary Magdalen' in the collection of Ferrucio Ferruzzi Balbi, Venice (Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, 1976, p.139, no.477, and fig.343). Both pictures are clearly of the mid 1690s as was suggested by Daniels, (in idem; in the Italian publication he curiously gives a date of ten years earlier, which would seem improbable). At that moment, Ricci was resident in Milan, where he had settled in January 1694 and was to remain until September 1696. His only other known depiction of the present subject was also executed in Milan for one of the nave piers of the cathedral; what remains of it is now in the Salone dell'Azione Cattolica (idem, p.72, no.226; L'opera completa di Sebastiano Ricci, no.72, illustrated).
Ricci's first Milanese commission, the frescoes of the dome and pendentives of the Ossuary Chapel of San Bernardino dei Morti (idem, p.71, no.225, and see figs.180-7), reveal the combined effects of the artist's sojourns in Parma 1685-8 and Rome 1691-4; to the influence of Correggio, evident in the 'luminosità giallognola abbagliante del cielo', is added that of the Roman Baroque, notably Baciccio, evident 'specialmente nella nuova elastica struttura dei corpi sciolti nello spazio' (R. Pallucchini, La Pittura Veneziana del Seicento, 1981, p.392). Milan itself brought new influences. As Aldo Rizzi has written (in the catalogue of the exhibition, Sebastiano Ricci, Villa Manin, Passariano, 25 June - 19 Nov. 1989, p.29) 'In occasione del soggiorno milanese, Sebastiano può aver incontrato (o, meglio, reincontrato) il Magnasco e, per suo mezzo, la pittura
genovese (non si dimentichi che il Baciccia era di tale estrazione), sulle cui prolusioni di gusto rocaille dimostra di essere ben aggiornato. Del resto, si tratta di un reflusso di linfe venete rianimate da una tecnica vorticosa, fluida e scattante (si pensi a Valerio Castello e a Gregorio de Ferrari) e della sontuosità cromatica rubensiana e coagulate in un humus culturale ricettivo e trasfigurante'. The present recently rediscovered picture is one of the masterpieces of this crucial moment in the development of
Ricci's mature style
Although the worship of Saint Mary of Egypt was fairly widespread in Italy and France, images of her are relatively rare, especially in comparison with those of her namesake the Magdalen, whose story forms so close a parallel. The two saints are often depicted together and it may not be a coincidence that of all the other pictures in Ricci's oeuvre, that most closely related to the present work is the (albeit much smaller) 'Communion of Saint Mary Magdalen' in the collection of Ferrucio Ferruzzi Balbi, Venice (Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, 1976, p.139, no.477, and fig.343). Both pictures are clearly of the mid 1690s as was suggested by Daniels, (in idem; in the Italian publication he curiously gives a date of ten years earlier, which would seem improbable). At that moment, Ricci was resident in Milan, where he had settled in January 1694 and was to remain until September 1696. His only other known depiction of the present subject was also executed in Milan for one of the nave piers of the cathedral; what remains of it is now in the Salone dell'Azione Cattolica (idem, p.72, no.226; L'opera completa di Sebastiano Ricci, no.72, illustrated).
Ricci's first Milanese commission, the frescoes of the dome and pendentives of the Ossuary Chapel of San Bernardino dei Morti (idem, p.71, no.225, and see figs.180-7), reveal the combined effects of the artist's sojourns in Parma 1685-8 and Rome 1691-4; to the influence of Correggio, evident in the 'luminosità giallognola abbagliante del cielo', is added that of the Roman Baroque, notably Baciccio, evident 'specialmente nella nuova elastica struttura dei corpi sciolti nello spazio' (R. Pallucchini, La Pittura Veneziana del Seicento, 1981, p.392). Milan itself brought new influences. As Aldo Rizzi has written (in the catalogue of the exhibition, Sebastiano Ricci, Villa Manin, Passariano, 25 June - 19 Nov. 1989, p.29) 'In occasione del soggiorno milanese, Sebastiano può aver incontrato (o, meglio, reincontrato) il Magnasco e, per suo mezzo, la pittura
genovese (non si dimentichi che il Baciccia era di tale estrazione), sulle cui prolusioni di gusto rocaille dimostra di essere ben aggiornato. Del resto, si tratta di un reflusso di linfe venete rianimate da una tecnica vorticosa, fluida e scattante (si pensi a Valerio Castello e a Gregorio de Ferrari) e della sontuosità cromatica rubensiana e coagulate in un humus culturale ricettivo e trasfigurante'. The present recently rediscovered picture is one of the masterpieces of this crucial moment in the development of
Ricci's mature style