Marco Ricci

Painter and engraver (Belluno 1676 – Venezia 1730)

Marco Ricci was born in Belluno in 1676. As vivacious in his private life as he was in his work, he began his career in his uncle Sebastiano's studio. At the beginning of the 18th century, Marco Ricci was in Venice and immediately afterwards in Naples where he encountered the innovative and 'pre-Romantic' painting of Salvator Rosa that was destined to profoundly influence his work.

Famous for his landscape production, Marco Ricci is considered a key author of the Venetian landscape current and the leader of the Capricci painters active in Venice in the first quarter of the Age of Enlightenment.

His qualities did not escape the attention of the refined and attentive taste for Venetian painting currents of the English Consul in Venice, Joseph Smith, who counted him among the circle of painters he protected.

From 1708 to 1716, the artist travelled to England via the Netherlands, places that stimulated and inspired his engraving and painting activities and subsequently attracted him many public commissions. His works are still preserved in the Royal Library in London and in the English Royal Collections. 

On their return to Venice, Marco Ricci stoped for two years in Paris with his uncle Sebastiano. With the money set aside, the uncle bought a house in the Procuratie Vecchie di San Marco, where Marco Ricci lived until his death in 1730.