(Venice 1710–1743)
Capriccio with Ruins on the Coast
oil on canvas, 55.5 x 72.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Ralph Toledano for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph.

Michele Marieschi painted numerous capriccios during his brief life. He drew inspiration from reality, transferring realistic architectural motifs into environments springing from his imagination. Most of his capriccios show river and lakeside landscapes, with villages and dilapidated buildings and towers rendered in the background and antique or Gothic ruins appearing in the foreground, where they function as repoussoirs to lead the viewer into the image. The compositional conception and the contrast between the shadowed foreground and the light-suffused background betray Marco Ricci’s influence on Marieschi’s landscape pictures.

Within Marieschi’s oeuvre, the present painting is closely related to his Capriccio with Rustic Houses on a River (Minneapolis, Institute of Art) and Capriccio with a Village on a River (London, National Gallery), which according to Pedrocco date from the 1740s (F. Pedrocco, in: F. Montecuccoli degli Erri/F. Pedrocco, Michele Marieschi. La vita, l´ambiente, l´opera, Milan, 1999, p. 350, no. 124, and p. 344, no. 118). The London painting similarly shows Marieschi’s preference for wide panoramas and also contains near the left margin the same repoussoir motif. Both the house with the wooden stairs and the ruined tower on its right are architectural motifs recurring in Marieschi’s capriccios: in Capriccio with Rustic Houses and Horsemen (Milan, private collection; see F. Pedrocco ibid., 1999, p. 270, no. 50), the motif of the house not only appears in the same place, but is also combined with the figure viewed from behind (macchietta). The present painting impressively illustrates Marieschi’s mastery in evoking atmosphere through a dynamic handling of the brush and harmonious use of colour.