A Capriccio with Horses Watering in a River Outside a Walled Town

Marco Ricci · c. 1720

Medium

Gouache, on kidskin, edge mounted on wood panel

Original size

31.6 × 45.6 cm (12 1/2 × 18 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

This sun-warmed capriccio draws the eye across a calm river to a walled town bathed in soft afternoon light, horses and figures lending the scene a gentle, unhurried life that feels both observed and invented. Marco Ricci was one of the foremost landscape painters of early eighteenth-century Venice, renowned for compositions that blend real topography with freely imagined architecture — the defining spirit of the capriccio genre. What sets this particular work apart is its medium: gouache on kidskin, a combination that produces a luminous, velvety surface quite unlike the texture of canvas or panel. The kidskin's suppleness absorbs the pigment differently, giving shadows an unusual depth and highlights a soft glow that oil on canvas rarely achieves. Ricci spent time in England in the early 1700s designing theatrical scenery, and the stagey framing of many his landscapes — figures small against sweeping settings — reflects that sensibility throughout his career. The hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas translates Ricci's quiet compositional intelligence into a format suited to living with daily: the warm tonal range, the carefully placed staffage, and the sense of hazy distance all carry through, giving you a faithful reading of one of the Art Institute of Chicago's most considered cabinet landscapes.