Wedding preparations - Arturo Ricci (Florence 1854 - 1919)

Oil painting on his canvas by Arturo Ricci (Florence 1854 - 1919) entitled "Wedding preparations" depicting a happy family scene set in the house.

Arturo Ricci, a Florentine painter, was an illustrious representative of the 19th century Italian school of painting. Strongly influenced by his professor Tito Conti (1842-1924) of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, he began to paint mainly genre and family life scenes, specializing mainly in eighteenth-century content, often in the Rococo style; apart from rare cases (as in the painting "The wedding dinner"), Ricci portrayed subjects of high society, with elegant costumed figures and sumptuous interiors, always richly decorated, thus meeting great favor with the new rich people of the nineteenth century who had nostalgia for the past. Arturo Ricci's paintings, with his eighteenth-century themes, became very popular; from 1884, he exhibited his works in Vienna and Germany, with success; then, his works were enormously requested by collectors throughout Europe and the United States and went on to decorate the walls of the luxurious salons and drawing rooms.In a long series of gallant scenes, full of serene grace, in which realism is combined with effects theatrical, the artist shows his great skill and his sense for drawing, composition and color, through which he manages to convey the emotional content of the work. Ricci also shows great attention to detail and painstakingly paints the details of the fabrics and upholstery, in brocade, silk and satin. Currently, his works, of high artistic value, are kept in museums and private collections in Russia and Europe.