Lot 31: Antonio Zucchi (Venice 1726-1795 Rome)

Antonio Zucchi (Venice 1726-1795 Rome) An Italian capriccio with figures making a sacrifice to Cybele in a ruined temple, others dancing on the shore beyond signed and dated 'Ant: Zucchi / 1778. ' (lower left) oil on canvas 48½ x 82¼ in. (123.3 x 209 cm.)

123.3 x 209 cm.

Born into a dynasty of Venetian artists, Antonio Zucchi became one of the most important decorative painters of the second half of the nineteenth century in England. This success mostly stemmed from the fruitful collaborative relationship that Zucchi established with the architect James Adam, who he met in Venice in 1760 and later accompanied to Rome. In 1766, upon Adam’s invitation, Zucchi moved to London, where he soon became Adam’s chief decorative painter. Zucchi’s abilities are demonstrated in many of Adam’s most celebrated houses, including Harewood House, Kenwood, Kedleston, Newby Hall, Nostell Priory, Osterley Park and Saltram House. In 1781, three years after the completion of this canvas, Zucchi married the acclaimed portrait painter Angelica Kauffman and the couple moved to Rome. Zucchi’s power of imagination and his talents as a view painter, in the great Venetian tradition, are manifest in this picture, in which he created an alluring architectural setting for an antique sacrificial rite to Cybele. Called Magna Mater or Great Mother by the Romans, Cybele was the goddess of the earth and fertility, which explains why she is shown here crowned with ears of corn and carrying a cornucopia, seated on a lion, as her traditional attribute. The carved relief of peasants ploughing a field adorning the plinth refers to her role as the protector of agriculture.