Marco Ricci produced a large number of paintings of landscape subjects executed in the unusual technique of gouache or possible tempera on leather, possibly kidskin (the paint was made by binding pigments with egg yolk or gum arabic respectively). Typically measuring about 31 × 45 cm, the smooth, pale surface of the skin on the stretcher gives a clarity and luminosity to the bright paint applied to it. Joseph Smith, who knew Marco Ricci well, collected 33 of Ricci's gouache paintings, all but one now in the Royal Collection. All the works are in their original Venetian frames (some have their eighteenth-century glazing intact) and they would have hung in groups, probably on the walls of Smith's residence at Mogliano.

Although most of Marco's gouaches are not dated, they can be placed in the 1720s, his last and most productive decade. Many are pastoral scenes – mountain landscapes, villages and farms – set in the richly fertile and dramatic landscape surrounding Marco's home town of Belluno in the Dolomites. Others illustrate the beauty and power of nature, with dramatic storms, torrents of water in rugged mountains or the surprise appearance of a bear or a snake. These were all subjects that Marco had painted throughout his life, reusing the compositions of existing drawings and oil subjects in the tempera medium. In contrast to his oil paintings, in the gouaches the sky is often an optimistic blue, the light refined and subtle.

This painting shows a winter subject rare in Marco Ricci's work, though he no doubt witnessed weather conditions such as this in the region of Belluno, where throughout the winter months snow was common, lakes froze and there was little sun. He must also have seen seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings in Consul Smith's collection. For example, Smith's Winter Scene by Isaac van Ostade (1621–49) or A Shepherd and Shepherdess with Flocks and Two Shepherds Driving their Flocks and Herds by Nicolaes Berchem (1620–83), in which shepherds and their animals journey in open countryside with Italian lighting effects. Marco would have seen other examples when he travelled through Northern Europe to and from Britain.

Text adapted from Canaletto & the Art of Venice, 2017.