Sebastiano Ricci

Sebastiano Ricci ( baptized August 1, 1659 in Belluno, † May 15 1734 in Venice) was an Italian painter of the Baroque. He is considered one of the most important Venetian painters of his time, learned to his nephew Marco Ricci, with whom he then worked after 1710 and which he often the scenery or landscapes left in his paintings, as apparently was in this genre the better, while he himself concentrated on portraits. After the return of the two Ricci from London to Venice in 1716, they were supported by the British businessman Joseph Schmidt.

Biography

Sebastiano Ricci was also a lot of work outside of Venice, for example in Turin, Parma and London. In Vienna he has an altarpiece in the Church of St. Charles, in particular, the Blue Staircase painted in Schönbrunn Palace.

Joseph then Crown Prince, took Ricci 1702 for coloring the dining room. It is considered the first independent ( = not framed by stucco ) ceiling painting in the Austrian area. Joseph is shown as a virtue hero who falls for the coronation by the laurel wreath. Due to its later conversion under Empress Maria Theresa was a staircase from the dining room. The name Blue stairs from the sky blue of the fresco.

Mid-1990s it was discovered by a lucky chance one of the early works of Ricci: the letter of an English tourist, who traveled in the 17th century Veneto, described two previously unknown, frescoed by Ricci salons in Villa Giovanelli at Noventa Padovana Padua. Thanks to the fortunate circumstance that these frescoes were painted over white, they are today, after its complete excavation and restoration, in very good condition.

Ricci's view is completely different about the Andrea Pozzo, the leading theorist of perspective painting of his time. In extreme shortening and quadrature painting is omitted, but the figures are extremely untersichtig.