Plate 13: a townscape with a fountain, fallen column and statue at right and a Gothic church beside an aqueduct in the background

Art Historical Context

This evocative etching, created in 1743 by Davide Antonio Fossati after a design by Marco Ricci, captures an imagined Italian townscape that blends architectural fragments from different eras. The scene features a weathered fountain, a toppled classical column, and a statue at the right, while a Gothic church stands beside an ancient aqueduct in the distance. Ricci, a Venetian artist celebrated for his landscape paintings and theatrical set designs, often specialized in such “capricci”—inventive compositions that romanticize ruins and invite viewers to reflect on the passage of time. As an etching, the work exemplifies the medium’s importance in 18th-century Europe for disseminating artistic ideas across borders. The fine, precise lines allow for delicate gradations of light and shadow, lending the ruins a picturesque, almost melancholic atmosphere that appealed to Grand Tour travelers and collectors. Produced during the height of Enlightenment fascination with classical antiquity, this print reflects Venice’s cultural dialogue with Rome’s heritage while showcasing Ricci’s influence on the emerging taste for atmospheric landscape views. Now part of the Metropolitan Museum’s collection through the bequest of Phyllis Massar, Plate 13 offers a window into the period’s imaginative reconstruction of history, where real and invented elements coexist to evoke both nostalgia and wonder.

About the Artist

Davide Antonio Fossati|Marco Ricci · 1708–1789

Davide Antonio Fossati (1708-1795) was a Swiss-Italian painter and etcher who specialized in fresco painting, particularly architectural and decorative works. Born at Morcote, Ticino, Switzerland in 1708, Fossati moved to Venice in 1720 at the young age of twelve, where he would spend most of his professional life working on decorative commissions for noble palaces and important churches across th...