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Lot Essay
A leading protagonist in the evolution of the Rococo style, Ricci’s artistic talents were recognised by collectors and connoisseurs across Europe, and demand for his work was strengthened by his travels throughout Italy and abroad - notably to England, where he worked between 1712 and 1716. Pallucchini (op. cit.) places this painting within the artist’s English period, typical of which is the artist’s use of sixteenth century Venetian elements enlivened with a new sensibility. This small, enchanting picture can be compared with Ricci’s Susannah and the Elders at Chatsworth, dated 1713. Ricci painted a number of pictures for his first English patron, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694–1753), including the monumental canvases of mythological subjects that are still at Burlington House (now the Royal Academy, London).
This type of scandalous, yet moralising subject was favoured by Ricci, since it allowed him to combine classical elements, close to the Venetian tradition, with the French Rococo fashions of his age. In the foreground, a naked nymph is surprised by the advances of an approaching satyr, and as she turns to face him, she gestures towards a mirror on the ground. The inclusion of the mirror, cautioning the viewer against carnal desire and earthly pleasures, dignifies the subject by introducing a moralising, vanitas element. This addition may have been at the behest of a patron; indeed, Ricci had already included similarly moralising elements in his Satyr, Venus and Cupid (private collection, France) of circa 1700.
Ricci’s painterly brilliance owed much to his Venetian forebears, in particular to Veronese and Titian's mythological and religious subjects. Indeed, the present painting is indebted to Titian, not only in its composition and iconography, but also in the pose and elegant hairstyle of the nymph, which calls to mind Titian’s Diana and Callisto (London, National Gallery, inv. NG6616). The nymph’s pose, meanwhile, finds comparison with the figure of Venus in Annibale Carracci’s Venus and Adonis (of which two versions are known: Madrid, Prado, inv. P002631; and Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. Gemäldegalerie 234), which Ricci may have known through Luigi Scaramuccia’s print of 1655.
The painting belonged to the famous merchand-amateur Francesco Pospisil who possibly acquired it in the 1950s directly from an English collection. Pospisil had moved in 1936 to the magnificent Palace Sagredo, Venice, one of the most prestigious palaces on the Grand Canal, where he displayed his impressive collection.
This type of scandalous, yet moralising subject was favoured by Ricci, since it allowed him to combine classical elements, close to the Venetian tradition, with the French Rococo fashions of his age. In the foreground, a naked nymph is surprised by the advances of an approaching satyr, and as she turns to face him, she gestures towards a mirror on the ground. The inclusion of the mirror, cautioning the viewer against carnal desire and earthly pleasures, dignifies the subject by introducing a moralising, vanitas element. This addition may have been at the behest of a patron; indeed, Ricci had already included similarly moralising elements in his Satyr, Venus and Cupid (private collection, France) of circa 1700.
Ricci’s painterly brilliance owed much to his Venetian forebears, in particular to Veronese and Titian's mythological and religious subjects. Indeed, the present painting is indebted to Titian, not only in its composition and iconography, but also in the pose and elegant hairstyle of the nymph, which calls to mind Titian’s Diana and Callisto (London, National Gallery, inv. NG6616). The nymph’s pose, meanwhile, finds comparison with the figure of Venus in Annibale Carracci’s Venus and Adonis (of which two versions are known: Madrid, Prado, inv. P002631; and Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. Gemäldegalerie 234), which Ricci may have known through Luigi Scaramuccia’s print of 1655.
The painting belonged to the famous merchand-amateur Francesco Pospisil who possibly acquired it in the 1950s directly from an English collection. Pospisil had moved in 1936 to the magnificent Palace Sagredo, Venice, one of the most prestigious palaces on the Grand Canal, where he displayed his impressive collection.