Marco Ricci

Marco Ricci (6 June 1676 – 21 January 1730) was an Italian Baroque painter.

Early years He was born at Belluno and received his first instruction in art from his uncle, Sebastiano Ricci, likely in Milan in 1694–6. He left for Venice with his uncle in 1696, but had to flee the city. In 1706–7, he worked with his uncle on the decoration of the Sala d'Ercole in the Palazzo Fenzi, located in Florence. Closer in time, and known personally by Ricci, was the Genoese painter Alessandro Magnasco, whose handling of loose paint and his long, thin, wiry figures are echoed in a number of Ricci's early canvases. In England, he frequently collaborated with the artist Pellegrini in the staging of Italian works at the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket. The pair painted stage scenery for two Italian operas, Pyrrhus and Demetrius by Alessandro Scarlatti and Nicola Haym, and Camilla by Antonio Maria Bononcini and Silvio Stampiglia, with English libretti by Owen McSwiney. Important patrons of Ricci in Venice were Consul Smith and Zanetti the Elder. He died in Venice in 1730. Among his pupils were Domenico Bernardo Zilotti and Giuseppe Valeriani.

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