Sebastiano Ricci

The following condition report is provided by Simon Parkes, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has been recently restored and is in very fresh and crisp condition. The canvas has been lined. The reason for the lining is two breaks in the canvas. One is a very thin vertical tear in the canvas which runs from the sharp peak of the obelisk in the distance on the left side down through the halo in front of Christ's head and towards the head of the dog in the lower left. The other break in the canvas begins in the table top in front of one of the saints holding the white cloth and runs up into his chest, across into the arm holding the cup and down again through the table cloth. Apart from these two thin and very isolated structural damages which have been well restored, there are essentially no other restorations. The signature is original and the painting is in beautiful condition.
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Sebastiano Ricci was a leading figure in the resurgence of the Venetian Rococo style and his importance to its popularity amongst collectors and connoisseurs across Europe was solidified by his travels both within and outside Italy.  Signed and dated 1713, this recently rediscovered Christ in the House of Simon provides an important point of reference in Ricci's career and in particular for his brief English sojourn.  Ricci had arrived in London at some time in 1712, brought from Venice by his nephew Marco who had preceded him there.  The precise motive for his trip remains unclear, but George Vertue suggested that it was the artistic rivalry of his nephew with Sebastiano's own pupil Giovan Antonio Pellegrini that was the immediate cause for the trip:

Sig^nr Marco. upon some disgust with Peligrini, they differd & Marco went to Venice to fetch his Uncle Sig^r Sebastian Richi. of whom Peligrini was a disciple.  Richi came over. & Exccelling of Pelegrini in every aspect was in some measure the occasion of Pelegrinis leaving England so soon....¹

Whatever the exact reason for his arrival, Ricci was warmly welcomed by English patrons; his success was considerable and immediate, and he counted many of the most important connoisseurs of the day amongst his early supporters.²  Most significant, however, was the young Richard Boyle, Third Earl of Burlington for whom Ricci painted a number of pictures for Burlington House, one of the most conspicuous projects in London in those years.³  Work for other aristocratic patrons would follow, including a major religious commission from the Duke of Portland for the chapel at Bulstrode House, Bucks. ⁴   

Confidently painted with flickering brushstrokes and a brilliant palette, this Christ in the House of Simon betrays the clear influence of Paolo Veronese, a common source of inspiration in Ricci's corpus.  Not surprisingly, Ricci turned specifically to works of similar subject by the older artist, including the Marriage of Cana, then in San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice (now the Louvre), for the multi-tiered tower in the distance-- along with other architectural elements-- and for the disposition of figures in the composition.⁵   Other works of the English period, however, show the artist casting a wider net for inspiration, as it is clear that he was adept at adapting himself to the subject and the purpose at hand.  Another dated picture of 1713, in fact, exemplifies the artist's mercurial style; a Susanna and the Elders at Chatsworth, was from as early as 1720, when already in the Devonshire collection, confused for a work of Annibale Carracci, and was given to him up until the mid 20^th Century when Ricci's signature and date was rediscovered after cleaning.  Other paintings spring from different sources, such as the Flight into Egypt also at Chatsworth which has a clear Poussinesque tone.  This varied production is hardly surprising given the clientele for which Ricci was working, highly attuned as it was to Italian art and music, and clearly attests to the rich artistic environment of which Ricci would have been a part whilst in London.  

While this painting has only recently come to light, the composition was known in another version, of slightly larger dimensions, in the collection of the Kunsthaus, Zurich (see fig. 1).⁶  That painting is executed in a much broader, less refined manner than the present canvas.  It does, however, enjoy an early English provenance, having been in the possession of the painter and art dealer Benjamin Vandergucht who gave it at his death in 1794 to the Mortlake Parish Church, London.⁷  While Christian Klemm (op. cit., p. 132) suggested a dating for the Zurich painting on stylistic grounds to circa 1715, later scholars have tended to connect the composition to paintings of the mid-1720's.  Annalisa Scarpa compared the Zurich painting to those of analogous subject in the Royal Collection, acquired by George III from Consul Smith, which can been dated to the middle of the third decade of the 18^th Century.⁸   The reappearance of the present painting dated 1713 as it is, however, suggests an earlier dating.  The present Christ and the Magdalene in the House of Simon, in fact, fits well amongst the paintings of the English period, including a number of signed (and sometimes dated) pictures, many of which may be associated with Lord Burlington.  These include the Susanna mentioned above, as well as another picture at Chatsworth of the Presentation at the Temple, both of which are signed in the same latinized manner.  Perhaps most compelling, however, is a comparison with the much larger Marriage at Cana at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (see fig. 2).  That painting, also signed "RICCIVS F.", was recorded at Chiswick House in the mid 19^th Century, and was almost certainly painted for Lord Burlington.  In it, Ricci works through a more elaborate composition, employing many of the same motifs as in the present painting; architectural elements such as the rotunda in the distance are reused, as well as incidental details, such as the woman carrying a jug on her head in the background and the rather charming, inquisitive dog at lower left.  The two paintings share such a parallel subject and conception that it seems impossible to suggest that they are not related in some way, even if the present canvas represents a smaller, more restrained variation on a theme.  Certainly, it seems that Ricci would have intended the picture for one of the Burlington circle itself.  

1.  See G. Vertue, "The Notebooks of George Vertue I," in Walpole Society, xviii, 1930, p. 39.  Another cause may have been the specific and high profile commission of the decoration of the dome of Saint Paul's in London; in a letter of 18^th November 1711, the antiquary John Talman snidely noted that "two very pitifull painters are setting out for England to paint the cupola of St. Paul ye one Signor Rizzi from Venice ye other Sigr. Franceschini (see E. Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting in England, vol. I, London, 1962, p. 72) while Pascoli in his Vita of the artist said that Ricci received a royal summons: "ricevè ordine espresso dalla regina d'Inghilterra di portavisi (see Vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni, vol II, Rome, 1730–36, p.  381)."
2.  His commissions brought him significant income—Sir James Thornhill noted in 1717 that Ricci was paid the considerable sum of £600 for his decoration of the chapel at Bulstrode (see J. Thornhill, "The Memorial of Sir James Thornhill, Knt., the History Painter (1676-1734),"  in The Wren Society, 6, 1929, p. 78). In fact Ricci was so successful that a special levy was imposed on the artist upon his departure from England in 1716 (cf. Pascoli, op. cit. p. 381, "è stato obbligato il Governo a caricarli di grosso dazio").
3.   Four of these paintings are still in the building, if not all in their original positions.  For fuller accounts of the relationship between Burlington and Ricci, please see B. Nicolson, "Sebastiano Ricci and Lord Burlington" in Burlington Magazine, vol. 105, no. 720, March 1963, pp. 121-125; and G. Knox, "Sebastiano Ricci at Burlington House: a Venetian decoration 'alla Romana'" in Burlington Magazine, vol. 127, no. 990, Sept. 1985, pp. 600-9.
4.  These were destroyed in the mid-19^th Century, and are known only from some of the modelli which have survived.  For a discussion, please see X. Salomon, in Sebastiano Ricci, il Trionofo dell'Invenzione nel Settecento Veneziano, Venice 2010, p. 72.
5.  Ricci's "Veronesesque" tendencies were remarked upon by his contemporaries. In a famous anecdote, the painter Charles de la Fosse is said to have told Ricci to stop painting like himself and instead paint "Veroneses" (see H. Walpole, Anecdotes).
6.  Bequest of the Betty and David M. Koetser Foundation, please see C. Klemm, The Paintings of The Betty and David M. Koetser Foundation, Zurich 1988, pp. 132-3, cat no. 57.
7.  By strange coincidence, Vandergucht died when crossing the Thames on his way home from Chiswick, where he had been cleaning and arranging pictures for the Duke of Devonshire, which had been inherited from Lord Burlington (see The Annual Register...for the Year 1794, London 1799, p. 32).  Mortlake Parish owned the painting until it was sold at Sotheby's London on 16 April 1980, lot 185 for £6,200, when purchased by Koetser.
8.  See A.  Scarpa, Sebastiano Ricci, Milan 2006, p. 344