The Marriage Feast at Cana

Artist Sebastiano Ricci (Italian (Venetian), 1659 - 1734)

Date1712-1715

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 65 3/4 x 54 inches (167.01 x 137.16 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number59-2

Signedlower left: RICCIVS F[ECIT]

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionIn the extreme left foreground before a massive Ionic column, a barefoot standing woman stands with her back to the viewer, holding a baby on her left shoulder. She looks over her right shoulder toward a man pouring wine from a water jug into a gold vessel. To his left a standing woman points with her right hand toward the man; in her left hand she holds a wine glass. In the right foreground are three male musicians. In the middle ground is a long banquet table; numerous figures are seated on the far side and ends. Other figures stand in the background. In the right middle ground is a two-story building with two corinthian columns, and in the center and left background is a portico of corinthian columns.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Eighteenth-Century Venice, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, January 3-March 14, 1951; Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, March 21-April 18, 1951, no. 110.

European Masters of the Eighteenth Century, London Royal Academy of Arts, November 27, 1954-February 27, 1955, no. 307.

Genre, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 5-May 15, 1983, no. 6.

Gallery Label

In The Marriage Feast of Cana, Christ, shown here seated to the right of center, performed the miracle of changing water into wine. In the left foreground a servant is shown pouring the newly made wine out of a jug. The elaborate architecture is typically Venetian and inspired by the magnificent architectural backgrounds of the Venetian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese. Ricci spent a number of years abroad working in England and Germany, and the splendor of settings such as these had an international appeal to the ruling classes whose own houses often had similarly grandiose interiors.

Provenance

Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753), Chiswick House, Hounslow, by 1753;

By descent to his daughter, Charlotte Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (née Boyle, 1731-1754), Chiswick House, Hounslow, 1753-1754;

By descent to Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire (1833-1908), Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire, by 1892-1908;

By descent to Victor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire (1868-1938), Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire, 1908-1938;

By descent Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire (1895-1950), Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire, 1938-1950;

By descent to Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire (1920-2004), Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire, 1950-June 27, 1958;

Purchased at his sale, Important Pictures by Old Masters from the Chatsworth Collection, Christie’s, London, June 27, 1958, lot 13, by Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1958;

With Frederick Mont, Inc., New York, by 1959;

Purchased from Mont by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1959.

Published References

Alexandre J. Paillet and Gregoire-Hippolyte Delaroche, Catalogue d’une riche collection d’articles curieux de tout genre (Paris: Paillet and Delaroche, [July 11, 1803]), 48.

John Preston Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England,

Wales, Scotland and Ireland, 2^nd ed., vol. 5 (London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1829), unpaginated, as by Marco Ricci.

Thomas Faulkner, The History and Antiquities of Brentford, Ealing, and Chiswick (London: Payne and Foss, 1845), 413, as by Marco Ricci.

Eighteenth-Century Venice, exh. cat. (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1951), 33.

Antonio Morassi, “Pitture veneziane del settecento in una mostra a Londra,” Emporium 113 (January-June 1951): 219.

Ornella Osti, “Sebastiano Ricci in Inghilterra,” Commentari 2 (1951): 122-23, (repro.).

Rodolfo Pallucchini, “La pittura veneziana del settecento all Whitechapel Gallery di Londra,” Arte Veneta 5 (1951): 209.

European Masters of the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1954), 92-93.

Anthony Blunt and Edward Croft-Murray, Venetian Drawings of the XVII and XVIII Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle (London: Phaidon Press, 1957), 57.

Advertisement, The Burlington Magazine 100, no. 633 (June 1958): ii, (repro.).

Advertisement, Illustrated London News (June 7, 1958): 971, (repro.).

Important Pictures by Old Masters from the Chatsworth Collection (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, June 27, 1958), 12-13, (repro).

Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) vol. 1, no.2 (December 1958): 12, (repro.).

Jan Dickerson, “Rare Gifts by Kansas Citians, New Purchases and Loans in Nelson Gallery Exhibit,” Kansas City Star (December 7, 1958): F1, (repro.).

Jan Stefanov, “25^th Anniversary: Nelson-Atkins Gallery Unique in Origin,” Kansas City-St. Joseph Register (December 19, 1958): unpaginated, (repro.).

Frank Davis, “A Page for Collectors: News from Kansas City,” The Illustrated London News (February 7, 1959): 222, (repro.).

Denys Sutton, Christie’s Since the War, 1945-1958: An Essay on Taste, Patronage and Collecting (London, 1959), 16, 135, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 262.

R.F.C. “Kansas City: Venticinque anni d’attività del Nelson Gallery Atkins Museum,” Emporium 132 (July-December 1960): 33, 35, (repro.).

Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del settecento (Venice: Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, 1960), 14, (repro.).

Benedict Nicolson, “Sebastiano Ricci and Lord Burlington,” Burlington Magazine 105 (1963): 122n17.

Michael Levy, The Later Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (London: Phaidon Press, 1964), 98.

Michael Milkovich, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci in America, exh. cat. (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1965), 10, 48, (repro.).

John Steer, A Concise History of Venetian Painting (New York: Praeger, 1970), 177, 212, (repro.).

William Hilton Sterling Jr, “The Wedding at Cana in Western Art of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries” (PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1970), 1:218; 2:535, (repro.).

Pietro Zampetti, A Dictionary of Venetian Painters, 17^th Century, vol. 3 (Leigh-On-Sea, UK: F. Lewis, 1971), 63.

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 541, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 72].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 174, 278, 589.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol.1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 143, 261, (repro.).

Manuela Piai, “Il ‘Veronese Revival’ nella pittura veneziana del settecento,” Atti del Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 133 (1974-75): 307-08.

Gertrude Grace Sill, A Handbook of Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Collier Books, 1975), 104, 228, (repro.).

Jeffery Daniels, L’opera complete di Sebastiano (Milan: Rizzoli, 1976), no. 309, pp. 83, 114, 116, (repro.).

Jeffery Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci (Hove, UK: Wayland, 1976), no. 124, pp. 43, 83, 116, (repro.).

Giuseppe Maria Pilo, Sebastiano Ricci e la pittura veneziana del settecento: Problemi e studi (Pordenone: Grafiche Editoriali Artistiche Pordenonesi, 1976), 67.

Anna Serra, ed., Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi su Sebastiano Ricci e il suo tempo: Udine, Biennali d’arte antica 1975 (Milan: Electa, 1976), 15, 69, 171.

The Toledo Museum of Art: European Paintings (Toledo: Toledo Museum of Art, 1976), 142.

Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, vol. 1 (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1979), 402n10.

Ross E. Taggart and Laurence Sickman, Genre, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 4, 10.

Thomas Wessel, Sebastiano Ricci und die Rokokomalerei (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Gaggstatter, 1984), 301n450.

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 64, 65, (repro.).

Christian Klemm, The Paintings of The Betty and David M. Koester Foundation (Zurich: Davaco, 1988), 132n2.

Frances Vivian, The Consul Smith Collection: Masterpieces of Italian Drawing from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle: Raphael to Canaletto, exh. cat. (Munich: Hirmer, 1989), 64.

Annalisa Scarpa Sonino, Marco Ricci (Milan: Berenice, 1991), 22, 23, 52n151, 53n170, (repro.).

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933-1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 74.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 179, (repro.).

Elliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 21, 337-42, (repro.).

Benjamin Peronnet and Burton B. Fredericksen, eds., Répertoire des tableaux vendus en France au XIX^esiècle, vol 1, 1801-1810: Tome 2: O-Z et Anonymes (Los Angeles: Getty Information Institute, 1998), 914.

“Dearly Beloved,” Volunteer Voice (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (Fall 2002): 7, (repro.).

Annalisa Scarpa, Sebastiano Ricci (Milan: Bruno Alfieri Editore, 2006), no. 178, pp. 206, 571, (repro.).

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