Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Venus and Cupid with other Figures before an Altar

Sebastiano Ricci
1659-1734

Venus and Cupid with other Figures before an Altar

8 11/16 x 6 1/2 inches (220 x 165 mm)
Black chalk on paper.
1950.5

Purchase.

Notes
Watermark: in transmitted light, through mount, Letters "AL" in double circle.
Drawings often show the signs of their collecting history, revealing how they were manipulated or modified by earlier owners. Past -- and present -- collectors have often chosen to mark their sheets with a stamp or numbers. Pierre-Jean Mariette had his own personal device, visible in the lower left corner of this drawing. His mark consists of a stamp, applied in black ink, with the collector's Latin initials -- P(etrus) I(oannes) M(ariette) -- interlaced in a circle. This study also bears, at the lower right, a handwritten number indicating it came from the collection of Pierre Crozat (1665-1740). -- Exhibition Label, from "Pierre-Jean Mariette and the Art of Collecting Drawings."
Sebastiano Ricci played a crucial role in reorienting Venetian painting, which in the seventeenth century had been dominated by foreign artists, toward a new, painterly grand manner inspired by such earlier masters as Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). Ricci's works are distinguished by their bright colors and flickering brushwork. In the eighteenth century, this drawing, which may have been made about 1700, belonged to the great French collector Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694-1774), who personally knew and wrote about the artist. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
Associated names
Mariette, Pierre Jean, 1694-1774, former owner.
Calmann, Hans M., former owner.
Bibliography
Pierpont Morgan Library. Review of Acquisitions, 1949-1968. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1969, p. 164.
Adams, Frederick B., Jr. First Annual Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1950, p. 51.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department