The Return of the Prodigal Son
Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659 – Venice 1734)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1712 - circa 1716
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
740 x 690 mm
Place of origin
Veneto
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 772287
Summary
Oil painting on canvs, The Return of the Prodigal Son by Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659 – Venice 1734). The son, dressed in red, returns to his father's house, a building with a classical engaged portico above a simple door, with an arch from the courtyard in which the scene is set to the outside world; the father welcomes the son from the steps, and a second man lies on the ground to the right of the scene; a servant dressed in blue is in the bottom left of the scene. This is an only very slightly varied version of the pictures at Stourhead, acquired by Henry II Hoare (1705-85) and the one in the Suida[-Manning?] Collection (exhibited in Venice 1700-1800, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1952, no. 61, lent by Dr and Mrs William E. Suida; ?subsequently in the collection of Bettina Suida & Robert Manning, New York?; and included by them in their legacy to ?). It differs from each in such minor details as the trailing ivy on the gateway wall, and it appears to be smoother in execution than the Stourhead painting (the handling of the Suida picture is impossible to assess from the 1952 catalogue illustration). A variant of the composition in reverse, larger, much more pronouncedly upright, with a more grandiose architectural setting, is one of a pair of collaborations between Sebastiano and Marco Ricci in the collection of John R. Blackett-Ord (exh. Newcastle, 1951, no.33; & 1999-200, no. ). A copy of this last by William Kent is at Chatsworth.
Provenance
Bequeathed by Mrs Ellett (1994/2001)
Makers and roles
Sebastiano Ricci (Belluno 1659 – Venice 1734), artist