This dynamic scene by Sebastiano Ricci is remarkable for its confident rendering, its flickering brushstrokes, and its brilliant palette. Within a lush, walled garden are numerous figures in a variety of poses and costumes gathered around a stone altar which anchors the center of the composition. Some play instruments, some hold weapons, and some are simply onlookers, while others make offerings at the altar. While Scarpa records this painting in her catalogue raisonné as a bacchanal, others have suggested that it may record either a sacrificial event or the Feast of Baal.
Visible in this work is the strong connection forged between Ricci and his Milanese contemporary Alessandro Magnasco, a relationship defined by a complex exchange of artistic ideas while preserving their independent visual vocabulary. The artists influenced one another, in the case in the Shanks canvas, Ricci’s stronger reliance on Magnasco is clear. Here, Magnasco’s influence is woven into the subject, the composition as well as the figures, although their rounder, softer, and less elongated bodies point clearly to the hand of Ricci. Such is the case also with Ricci’s
Rape of the Sabines, formerly in the Baroni collection.
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1. Scarpa 2006, p. 211, cat. no. 197, reproduced fig. 153.