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1 of 253523 objects
A tomb and ruined buildings c. 1725-30
Pen and brown wash, heightened with bodycolour, on grey-blue paper | 39.0 x 52.3 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 991127

Marco Ricci (Belluno 1676-Venice 1730)
A tomb and ruined buildings c. 1725-30
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A drawing of a ruined classical tomb with three figures in front of it. On the left is a Corinthian column, to the right of which lies a section of another column. In shadow in the middle ground two figures stand on a wall, and beyond them is a pair of columns and other ruins. Signed, on the stone block, lower right: MR. f.
This is almost identical in composition with a painting in the Honolulu Academy of Arts. The tomb is like that to be found in one of the gouaches, RCIN 991127, and the form of the fountain is repeated in the etching Bartsch 12. The figure of Time supporting the sarcophagus is close to Sebastiano Ricci's design for a monument to Newton (RCIN 907124), repeated in Marco Ricci's painting of the same subject in tempera on leather, RCIN 400585.
RCIN 991126 to RCIN 991129 are all rendered in exactly the same technique. Marco Ricci seems rarely to have executed this type of drawing on blue paper heightened with white.
Provenance
Probably acquired in 1762 by George III from the collection of Joseph Smith, British Consul in Venice
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Medium and techniques
Pen and brown wash, heightened with bodycolour, on grey-blue paper
Measurements
39.0 x 52.3 cm (sheet of paper)