Dioscorides, oil on canvas, 183 x 37 cm, framed

Provenance:
European private collection

Literature:
E. Lucchese, Sebastiano Ricci e dintorni, in: Studi di Storia dell’Arte, 21, 2010, pp. 216/17

Additional literature:
S. Marinelli, Modelli diversi di Sebastiano Ricci, in: Sebastiano Ricci 1659-1734, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi 14-15 dicembre 2009, ed. by G. Pavanello, Venice, 2012, p. 69, ill. 15

We are grateful to Dr. Annalisa Scarpa for confirming the attribution for the present painting (written communication, December 2011).

The unusual format of the present painting, together with its subject matter, which shows the celebrated ancient Greek physician Dioscorides, suggests that it originally formed part of a decorative scheme such as those that still exist for the Venetian pharmacies of Santa Fosca and the Campo San Stin (today in Venice, Museo di Ca‘ Rezzonico).

Another painting, most probably a pendant of the present painting, is of identical dimensions and also depicts a physician from antiquity, namely Areios, a close friend of Dioscorides, to whom the latter dedicated his major work of the same name, Dioscorides. The companion piece painting is however by a different hand and has been attributed to Antonio Arrigoni (c. 1664–1730) by Lucchese (see E. Lucchese, “Sebastiano Ricci e dintorni” in: Studi di Storia dell’Arte, 21, 2010, pp. 216/17).

Both Lucchese and Scarpa date the present work to around 1710, before Sebastiano Ricci’s departure for England, when the artist had returned to Venice from Florence as a successful painter. During this period he painted The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints for the church of San Giorgio Maggiore and was entrusted with commissions for Santa Maria dei Carmini and the Sala dello Scrutinio in the Ducal Palace.

In the present painting, Ricci’s hand reveals itself in the liberal, flowing brushwork, the skilful employment of the chiaroscuro, and the spontaneous reflections of light modelling the drapery. Through two diagonal lines of shadow the artist has succeeded in creating an illusion of depth, in spite of the picture’s elongated format. The type of the head is comparable to those of Saint Anthony the Abbot (Certosa di Vedana) and of the saint in The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Louvre, Paris), as well as depictions of satyrs populating diverse bacchanals. It is also interesting to observe the details, such as the transparent glass jar filled with an unidentified substance, the herbs Dioscorides holds in his hand, the laces trimmings at the sleeves, and the elegant Baroque base with its inscription.

Pedanios Dioscurides came from Anazarbus in Asia Minor and was a military surgeon in Rome, where he also attended to the Roman emperors Claudius and Nero. During his extensive travels, which led him from North Africa to Gaul, he acquired a comprehensive botanical and medical knowledge, so that he was also familiar with Indian and Persian drugs. His principal work, De materia medica (“On Medical Substances”), which consisted of five volumes, deals with animal and plant food and remedies, such stimulants as wine, and minerals, but also with magic. The book discusses as many as 1,000 drugs and about five times as many applications. The so-called Dioscorides is therefore one of the most influential works in the history of medicine and pharmacology. It was only the rise of organic chemistry during the 19th Century that made its use in the daily practice of herbology and pharmaceutical production and application superfluous.

Provenance:
European private collection

Literature:
E. Lucchese, Sebastiano Ricci e dintorni, in: Studi di Storia dell’Arte, 21, 2010, pp. 216/17

We are grateful to Dr. Annalisa Scarpa for confirming the attribution