None of Marco Ricci’s etchings were published until a few months after his death, when twenty were issued by Carlo Orsolino; an album of these prints in the Royal Collection from Joseph Smith’s collection (in its original binding stamped with Smith’s coat of arms) contains a further etching, RCIN 809060.x, known in only one other impression. The present drawing corresponds in almost all details with that etching, differing only in the form of the tree to the left and the figures in the foreground. The Remondini collection in the Museo Civico of Bassano, the town of Marco’s birth, contains unique impressions of another twelve etchings, together with multiple proof states (some corrected by the artist) of the twenty published plates, all of which must have been in Marco’s studio at his death. Ricci stated in a letter of 1723 that he had just taken up etching, and it is likely that he never intended this as a commercial venture; significantly, Smith entitled his volume MARCI RICCI EXPERIMENTA (‘Experiments of Marco Ricci’).

Few of Marco Ricci’s drawings can be dated with any certainty, though almost all of Smith’s collection date from the latter part of the artist’s career. Often Marco used pre-existing works of art as the basis for his prints, but the careful handling of this drawing indicates that it was conceived directly as the model for the etching, and can therefore be dated to the last seven years of his life.

Joseph Smith’s will of 1761 referred to ‘whole volumes’ of drawings by Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, without mentioning their number. Most of those by Marco were remounted for George III with his typical wash borders, in two volumes entitled Paesi (landscapes) and Architettura (mainly theatrical scenery), containing a total of 106 drawings. Twenty-seven landscapes, too large for the volumes, were housed in a portfolio, and a further thirteen framed landscape drawings were hung in the newly acquired Buckingham House; they were removed from display in 1950, but are now badly faded after two centuries exposed to light.

Text adapted from Holbein to Hockney: Drawings from the Royal Collection