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Marco Ricci (Belluno 1676-Venice 1730)

Sava Lukić Vladislavić (?) c. 1715-25

Pen and brown ink over black lead | 12.4 x 8.0 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 907276

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  • A pen and ink drawing of an elderly man, standing, facing the viewer: wearing a three-cornered hat, an uncurled full-bottom wig, a long skirted coat and a sword; with his right hand on his cane.

    This may be a caricature of Count Sava Lukić Vladislavić: see RCIN 907274 and 907275. He is also represented in Anton Maria Zanetti's album of caricatures in the Fondazione Cini, Venice: inv. 36636 and inv. 36648.

    This drawing belongs to an album of operatic caricatures mainly by Marco Ricci and Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder, an intact album from the library of Joseph Smith. Zanetti and another Venetian collector, Francesco Algarotti, owned similar albums, with many of the caricatures copied or traced, with identifying inscriptions. Zanetti's album is now in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, and Algarotti's belongs to Albert Gellman and is in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

    Opera was an important part of Venetian society and culture, and such caricatures were circulated among friends and collectors for light-hearted amusement. Joseph Smith was a keen opera lover who was married to the English opera singer Catherine Tofts and kept a box at the Teatro San Grisostomo in Venice. He collected operatic caricatures of the singers and performers of the day as well as artists and other well-known characters by Marco Ricci and others, and had them bound into this album. The drawings were shared and circulated among the three collectors and their circle as light-hearted amusement, but the artistic caricature was also a long established practice in Italian art.
    Provenance

    From the collection of Consul Joseph Smith; acquired by George III in 1762

  • Medium and techniques

    Pen and brown ink over black lead

    Measurements

    12.4 x 8.0 cm (sheet of paper)

  • Other number(s)
    Alternative title(s)

    An old man

    Conte Sava (?)