The artist's vibrant and audacious interpretation of the theme (Saint Matthew 2:9-11) serves as a connection in Venetian art between Paolo Veronese and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The work is fundamentally based on the altarpiece created by Veronese in 1573 for San Silvestro, Venice (currently housed in the National Gallery, London) and foreshadows the altarpiece crafted by Tiepolo in 1753 for the Schwarzach monastery in Franconia (now located in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich). All three pieces are sizable, but Tiepolo's composition stands out from the others, which are nearly square, by being condensed into a vertical format.
George III acquired The Adoration of the Magi in 1762 from Consul Joseph Smith, and it was one of a series of seven paintings depicting New Testament themes. The associated artworks include Christ and the Woman who Believed, Christ and the Woman of Samaria, The Magdalen anointing Christ's Feet (all remaining in the Royal Collection), The Pool of Bethesda, and The Woman taken in Adultery (Ministry of Works, currently at Osterley House) and The Sermon on the Mount, which is missing. All these paintings, except for the current one, depict scenes from Christ's ministry.
The source of the commission for this collection of paintings is unclear. The scale of the project (the measurements in every instance are exceptionally large and there are significant alterations in format) has linked the series to an undocumented commission for the Royal House of Savoy in Turin, where Ricci was employed in the 1720s.The artwork illustrates Sebastiano Ricci's influence on the development of Rococo art in Venice, culminating in Tiepolo's creations. The backdrop of The Adoration of the Magi is striking, the painting's technique energetic and stylish, and the hues vivid.
The Adoration of the Kings by Sebastiano Ricci (1659–1734), held in the Royal Collection Trust.Ricci was a Venetian painter whose career took him across Italy as well as to Vienna and London, and his style moved from the late-Baroque manner of Luca Giordano toward the lighter, more elegant qualities of the Rococo. This particular canvas belongs to a larger set: after returning to Venice from England in 1716, Ricci worked with his nephew Marco to produce a series of seven large New Testament scenes, of which this painting is one. Marco Ricci's contribution was architectural he supplied the built settings that frame the biblical figures, while Sebastiano handled the figural composition, a typical division of labour in Venetian workshop practice of the period. The series later gained wider circulation when the collector Joseph Smith commissioned engravings of the paintings in 1742, which helped spread knowledge of Ricci's work beyond Venice.
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As a subject, the Adoration of the Kings (the Magi presenting gifts to the infant Christ) let Ricci combine devotional narrative with theatrical staging rich colour, dynamic grouping, and dramatic lighting characteristic of his late style, set within Marco's classicising architectural backdrop, together producing the kind of grand decorative religious painting favoured by aristocratic and royal collectors of the early eighteenth century.
