Alegoria da Toscana

In 1706 Sebastiano Ricci came down to Florence, a Venetian painter at the height of his powers, and worked for the Medici court. This allegory belongs to that stay. Rather than tell a story, it gathers figures who each stand for something, with Tuscany itself personified among them, the kind of flattering picture a ruling house liked to have made about its own land. What holds the eye in Ricci is less the message than the handling, the bright colour and quick, light touch he had carried out of Venice. That manner was going out of fashion at home, where a heavier Baroque still reigned, and Ricci helped keep it alive. A generation later a younger Venetian, Giambattista Tiepolo, would build a whole career on much the same airy style.