ARTURO RICCI BLINDS MANS BUFF (INTERIOR SCENE) PARTY PAINTING



Arturo Ricci
Italian, 1854-1919
Blinds Mans Buff (interior scene) party or recital
Signed: Arturo Ricci
(lr)
Mezzotint/Aquatint (with hand embellishment) ? Watercolor & Gouache
12 x 24 inches

Condition report: Very good and bold; minor paper separation (upper middle left quadrant) and bottom lower right quadrant. Additional Notes: Housed in its original black ebonized frame with gilt wooden colored fillet. Titled: Blind Man?s Buff ? in black pigment.

COMPARABLE #1: For a similar quality example see: Christies, 6/12/12; Lot: 48 with a presale estimate of $155,330 ? $232,995 USD ? SOLD: $188,335 USD
COMPARABLE #2: For a similar quality example see: Bonhams, 3/27/07; Lot: 123 with a presale estimate of $137,415 ? $176,680 USD ? SOLD: $164,900 USD
COMPARABLE #3: For a similar quality example see: Sotheby?s, 4/25/06; Lot: 76 with a presale estimate of $60,000 ? $80,000 USD ? SOLD: $156,000 USD

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, New York;
By descent to the present owner.

ARTIST BIO:
Arturo Ricci, Italian 1854 - 1919

A Florentine Arturo Ricci received his instruction at the Academy of Art under Professor Tito Conti. Conti retained an admirable sense of composition and grace of figures; his drawing and color were excellent but his remarkable facility for representing inanimate objects was his forte.

Apparently Conti had been able to instill in his pupil an excellent ability of interpretation. This provided Ricci with the means of portraying scenes of everyday aristocratic life with which he was most familiar. They also gave the artist an opportunity for a most wondrous display of 'costume art.' Presented in meticulous detail - white satin, black jack-boots or flower petals - all were done with exacting justice and they each appeared to have the look, surface and texture of the actual item. These family views were the artist's preference, although he did at intervals devote himself to the study of landscape.

The artist exhibited his work throughout Italy and Germany while spending the remainder of his life in Florence.

Biography excerpted from the unpublished catalog by Edward P. Bentley for the Haussner Restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland, titled: Haussner's, The Children.

Excellent.