Marco Ricci

Small paintings of this type, executed in tempera or gouache, generally on a kidskin support, have been prized by collectors ever since the eighteenth century.  Although Ricci experimented with this medium fairly early in his career, it was during the last fifteen years of his life that he produced the majority of his works executed using this attractive and luminous technique. The landscapes, hilly or mountainous, are always arranged in receding planes, dramatically enriched by rocks and trees, while the almost incidental figures, generally placed in the foreground, are totally overwhelmed by the powerful nature surrounding them, creating effects not unlike those produced in the very successful, large landscapes painted by Salvator Rosa in the previous century.

See also the following lot.