page_title: Francesco Zuccarelli
section_title: First English period (1752–1762)
hierarchical_section_title: Francesco Zuccarelli / First English period (1752–1762)
caption_attribution_description: English: Painting by Francesco Zuccarelli. c. 1760. Oil on panel. 33 x 44.5 cm. Private Collection. (F. Spadotto, cat. no. 304)
context_page_description: Giacomo Francesco Zuccarelli RA, was an Italian artist of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He is considered to be the most important landscape painter to have emerged from his adopted city of Venice during the mid-eighteenth century, and his Arcadian views became popular throughout Europe and especially in England where he resided for two extended periods. His patronage extended to the nobility, and he often collaborated with other artists such as Antonio Visentini and Bernardo Bellotto. In 1768, Zuccarelli became a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and upon his final return to Italy, he was elected president of the Venetian Academy. In addition to his rural landscapes which frequently incorporated religious and classical themes, Zuccarelli created devotional pieces and on occasion did portraiture. Beside paintings, his varied output included etchings, drawings, and designs for tapestries as well as a set of Old Testament playing cards.
  Despite the fame he experienced in his lifetime, Zuccarelli's reputation declined in the early 19th century with naturalism becoming increasingly favoured in landscapes.
context_section_description: According to Henry Angelo, it was Richard Dalton, the royal librarian, who persuaded Zuccarelli to travel to England. Consul Smith was also likely involved in some way. A splendid canvas of the artist's early English period, signed and dated 1753, depicts a cheerful country festival. The Arcadian style remains his best known, where nature is transfigured into pleasant scenery, representing a platonic golden age, pervaded with beauty and love.
  His decorative talent resulted in diverse work, including the design of tapestries with the weaver Paul Saunders at Holkham Hall. Based on the tapestry cartoons, Zuccarelli was commissioned in 1758 by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester to produce the corresponding paintings of Oriental themes, such as Pair with Dromedary.
  By November 1757, Zuccarelli had become a member of the Dilettante Society. In 1760, he painted the elegiac Et in Arcadio Ego, a work described as an "admirable picture" by the poet George Keate. In the same year, Zuccarelli borrowed from Shakespeare, depicting a scene from Macbeth where Macbeth and Banquo encounter the three witches, noteworthy as being one of the first paintings to portray theatrical characters in a landscape. The impetus of the work may have come from the portrayals of Macbeth by the actor David Garrick, a later acquaintance. Its initial genesis was a pen and ink sketch, followed by paintings on panel and then canvas.
  In this period, he also produced vedute, a genre new to him, seen for example in A View of the River Thames from Richmond Hill looking towards Twickenham, and the View of Vicenza with Ancient Monuments. Zuccarelli held a sale of his canvases in 1762 at Prestage and Hobbs in London, before his departure for Italy. The pictures listed for sale comprise a heterogeneous lot, including religious scenes, a portrait, the Four Seasons, and an Arabian horse  Also in 1762, King George III acquired thirty of his works through the purchase of much of Consul Smith's extensive art collection and library in Venice.
caption: Macbeth and the Witches. c. 1760.[33]
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