The INVESTinART Collection · painting · 45 × 137 cm
Capriccio with Ancient Roman Ruins
1676 Belluno–1730 Venice
About the work
A panoramic Baroque capriccio — the ruins of an ancient temple with sculptures and small figures going about their everyday lives among them, and in the distance a dome recalling St. Peter's in Rome. It is a subject typical of Marco Ricci: his ruin paintings, with their recurring motifs of ruins and sculptures, reminded contemporaries of the transience of all earthly things — even the most magnificent works of man turn to dust with time.
The unusual, markedly panoramic format makes the work an impressive wall piece. Painted on a wood panel, it bears the monogram “MR” on the round column fragment and has survived in good condition appropriate to its age; it is sold in a period gilded frame showing traces of time. This nearly three-hundred-year-old work adds a second register of Ricci's art to the collection — alongside the coastal veduta, his celebrated ruin capricci.
Catalogue details
- Artist
- Marco Ricci
- Year
- c. 1710 – 1720
- Medium
- oil on wood panel
- Signature
- monogram “MR” on the round column fragment
- Dimensions (unframed)
- 45 × 137 cm
- Dimensions (framed)
- 62 × 156,5 cm
- Provenance
- Art gallery, Sweden
About the artist
Marco Ricci
1676 Belluno–1730 Venice
The founder of eighteenth-century Venetian landscape painting: born in Belluno on 6 June 1676, he learned his craft from his uncle, the celebrated Sebastiano Ricci, later collaborating with him on palace decorations in Florence and Rome. He won fame with his capricci — fantasy compositions of Roman ruins coveted by English aristocrats on the Grand Tour — and also worked as a stage designer in Venice and London.
His art fused the influence of Dutch landscapists with the drama of Salvator Rosa and Magnasco; he died in Venice on 21 January 1730, and the civic museum of his native Belluno preserves a major group of his works. Our two pieces — a harbour landscape and a capriccio with ruins — represent precisely the two genres that made his name.
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“Capriccio with Ancient Roman Ruins” — Marco Ricci