Sebastiano Ricci

With P. & D. Colnaghi Ltd., London, 1956;

Robert and Bettina Suida Manning collection, New York, 1976;

Anonymous sale ('Property from a Corporate Collection'), London, Sotheby's, 7 December 2006, lot 212, for £93,600;

Where acquired by the present owner.

New York, Finch College Museum of Art, Venetian Baroque Painters, 1964, no. 50;

Memphis, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery; and Lexington, University Art Gallery, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci in America, 19 December 1965 – 23 January 1966; and 13 February – 6 March 1966, no. 6.

M. Milkovich, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci in America, exh. cat., Memphis and Lexington 1965–66, pp. 13 and 25, no. 6, reproduced;

J. Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, Hove 1976, p. 81, no. 271, reproduced fig. 158;

J. Daniels, L'opera completa di Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 1976, pp. 103–4, no. 186, reproduced;

E. Martini, Pittura Veneta e altra Italiana dal XV al XIX secolo, Rimini 1992, p. 248, reproduced fig. 180;

J. Bober in Capolavori della Suida Manning Collection, J Bober and G. Bora (eds), exh. cat., Milan 2001, p. 126;

E. Martini, Pinacoteca Egidio Martini a Ca' Rezzonico, Venice 2002, pp. 256–57;

A. Scarpa, Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 2006, pp. 256 and 451, no. 323, reproduced fig. 199.

In this richly chromatic composition, the figure of Ariadne is shown receiving the circlet of nine stars by the goddess Venus. Her soon-to-be husband Bacchus is depicted at her side.

Painted during Sebastiano Ricci’s soujourn in England, this work is datable to the second half of the first decade of the 18^th century and anticipates the celebrated treatments of the same subject painted for for Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl Burlington, at Chiswick House¹ and in the collection of Dr. Karl Graf von Schoenborn-Wiesentheid, Pommersfelden, Germany.² The artist's relish for painting Ovidian themes is well attested and demonstrated by the numerous paintings of this subject, numbering 8 in total, all varying in format and composition.³

Stylistically and thematically, the present painting is strikingly akin to Ricci’s Flora and Zephyr in the Pinacoteca Martini, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice, which is slightly later in date (1713–14) and also painted on an oval canvas.⁴

¹ https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/bacchus-and-ariadne-178892

² Scarpa 2006, pp. 283 and 585, no. 391, reproduced fig. 486.

³ J. Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci, Hove 1976, p. 81, no. 271.

⁴ Inv. no. 103; oil on canvas, oval; 134 x 108 cm; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Ca%27_Rezzonico_-_Zefiro_e_Flora_%28Inv.103%29_-_Sebastiano_Ricci.jpg