MARTÍN RICO Y ORTEGA

Private American Collection (acquired in Italy, late 19^th Century)
(thence by descent)

Judging from the expanse of color and brilliant luminosity that Rico captures in this picture, it is little surprise that the Spanish artist spent much of his career documenting Venice’s splendor. Venetian veduti celebrated the city’s elegant architecture and majestic urban setting well into the twentieth century, from the onset of the Grand Tour.

Born in 1833 in El Escorial, Madrid, Martín Rico began his artistic training from an early age, commencing his formal studies at the San Fernando School in Madrid. Having learned the plein air technique during youthful travels throughout Spain, Rico qualified for a government scholarship to study abroad with Raimondo de Madrazo in Paris in 1859. It was during his time in Paris that Rico came under the influence of the Barbizon school and the landscapes of Daubigny. Rico stayed in Paris until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 forced him to return home with his fellow Spanish painters. It was in 1872 that Rico, fresh from a sojourn in Grenada with Mariano Fortuny, traveled throughout Italy, making Venice his last stop. From 1874 on, he visited Venice in the summers renting a palazzo and becoming acquainted with the city’s system of hidden courtyards, canals, and lagoons.

In 1878 Rico exhibited over sixteen works at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. His entry earned him a gold medal and the French Légion d’Honneur. Responding to this exhibit in La Gazette de Beaux-Arts, critic Paul Lefort wrote: “Martín Rico, of whom we possess sixteen works, the majority of which are small, is one of Fortuny’s most brilliant disciples. Although a fanatic when it comes to light, and an aficionado of rare and augmented colour tonalities which, in his works, resemble precious stones, he refrains from overstepping the limits of human vision. He is also aware, judging from the fine mist in which his figures and landscapes are shrouded, of all that is alive and brilliant in his privileged brush… The Grand Canal of Venice, the Slave’s Wharf, his views of Rome, of Toledo, of the Escorial and of Granada are other inimitable morceaux which reveal his talents in composition as well as his care in execution” (C. González and M. Martí, Spanish Painters in Rome 1850-1900, Madrid, 1987, pp. 182-3).

This view of Santa Maria della Salute, most likely painted from a gondola the artist fashioned as his studio, depicts with vivid detail the bustling lagoon behind this famous church. Generally referred to as La Salute, this 17^th century baroque architectural jewel was commissioned by the Senate in 1630 to honor the Virgin Mary for delivering Venice from the grips of a plague in the early part of the century. The only great Baroque monument built in Italy outside of Rome, the octagonal construction is recognized for its elaborate façade and grandiose scale, marking the main entrance of the Grand Canal and Piazza San Marco.