17th Or 18th Century Old Master Drawing Attr To Marco Ricci (1679 - 1729) Celebrated Provenance

Attributed to Marco Ricci (1679 – 1729)

A Landscape with Travellers being Attacked

Pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, fragmentary black ink framing lines, 358 x 536 mm; laid down onto a supporting mount with framing lines in grey and red ink

Provenance
-    Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), London (Lugt 2445, blind stamped, lower left)
-    Wiliam Young Ottley (1771–1836), London (Lugt 2663, lower right)
-    Matthew Holbeche Bloxam (1805–1888), Rugby, Warwickshire, England, by whom given to:
-    Rugby School Art Museum, until deaccessioned
-  Private collection, The Netherlands

With inscription ‘Palmieri’ on the reverse

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Ricci was born at Belluno and received his first instruction in art from his uncle, Sebastiano Ricci, likely in Milan in 1694–6. He left for Venice with his uncle in 1696, but had to flee the city. He visited Rome, where he was for some time occupied in painting perspective views. Ricci's propensity for collaboration with other artists makes his early style difficult to trace, but it is generally agreed that his influences included Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet, and Salvator Rosa, along with a naturalistic style of landscape painting practiced in the Veneto in the 17th and early 18th centuries. 
Through the prompting of Charles Montagu, 4th Earl of Manchester, and British ambassador to Venice, in late 1708 Ricci travelled to England, and on his way there he stopped in the Netherlands to study Dutch landscape painting. In England, he frequently collaborated with the artist Pellegrini in the staging of Italian works at the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket

Marco Ricci returned to Venice in 1716, living with his uncle there until his death. Ricci's output in the 1720s was prodigious, and his production encompassed landscapes, capriccios, gouaches on vellum, drawings of stage designs and caricatures. Ricci can be regarded as the initiator of a new Venetian landscape style, which became an immediate international success. 

This drawing of impressive size has a fascinating provenance, having been owned by some of the greatest collectors of drawings of the last centuries, and was even part of a museum collection until it was deaccessioned. There are some small damages which can be seen in the photographs, which is quite usual for drawings of this large size. 

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