18th Century, Venetian School Painting with Architectural Capriccio

The painting depicts a landscape composition of invention portraying on the right a ruined building, probably an ancient temple, on whose top have sprouted some plants. The fantasy ruins have columns and pilasters in composite Corinthian style; several fragments are lying on the ground. The scene is animated by lively figurines. Some dressed in the old style sit on the ruins, one is intent on smoking a long pipe. On their right they entertain two other characters with an oriental turban headdress. In the distance a verdant landscape with other small figures. A crenellated medieval tower is crumbled on a high ground. The landscape is lost towards a mountain, overlooked by a tormented sky, whose clouds filters a suggestive ray of light. The representation of a place of fantasy, also called architectural capriccio, was often in use among the Venetian painters and visionarists of the 18th century. The painter shows you a remarkable luministic virtuosity and manages to build a very pleasant work where the Rovinistic sensibility is closely linked to a theatrical and scenographic taste.
For these characteristics and for the references to the Eastern world, the author is to be sought in the Venetian area of the beginning of the 18th century. The canvas manifests a derivation from themes present in the works of the Venetian (Italian) Marco Ricci, nephew of the great painter Sebastiano, with whom he collaborated repeatedly. Very inclined to the landscape theme, Marco Ricci preferred it and soon turned, recording influences from Titian, Tempesta, J. Eismann, with luminous compositions and rich of atmospheric effects. The influence of Salvator Rosa and Alessandro Magnasco, who inspired him and from whom drew the technique of quick and loose brushstrokes, is particularly significant. Between 1708 and 1716 he lived in England, and painted scenes for Lord Manchester for the Italian Opera in the Queen’s theatre of Haymarket; in 1716 he returned to Venice, continued the scenographic activity and dedicated himself to the theme of the ruins. Numerous his drawings, characterized by an intense and vibrant brightness. The engravings, printed in countless copies from his works, had an extraordinary influence on the Italian and European landscape until the beginning of the 19th century. Marco Ricci in Venice had a very large and articulated workshop with which he could meet the numerous requests for paintings that came to him from all over Italy and Europe.
Also of value is the frame, painted as a fake turtle, with moulded internal profile in ebony and gilded wood. Golden corners with vegetable design.