Sebastiano Ricci was born in Belluno in 1659. Through his prolific and international career, creating dynamic and luminous decorative schemes, Ricci was a highly influential painter who not only contributed to the growing taste for Venetian painting but also bridged the gap between the drama of the Baroque with the exuberance of the Rococo.
Ricci first studied in Venice, before moving to Bologna in 1681, marking the start of a fifteen-year period of intense study and work in Emilia, Lombardy, and Rome. In Bologna he gravitated toward the studio of Carlo Cignani (1628–1719), then the leading exponent of the Carracci tradition. In Parma he studied the sensuous colour of Correggio (1495–1534) and Parmigianino (1503–1540), as well as their graceful, refined figure repertory.
Supported by one of his most important Emilian patrons, Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, the artist went to Rome in 1691. There, he studied the great 16th- and 17th-century painters, the Carracci, Pietro da Cortona (1596–1669), Giovanni Lanfranco (1582–1647), Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709), and Luca Giordano (1634–1705).
By 1696, Ricci had returned to Venice. During his time in the city, he undertook a number of his most masterful decorations, which revealed careful exploration of Veronese's pure colour and tonal highlights, expressive use of light, illusionistic composition, and richness of costume; all of which the younger artist assimilated into an already mature personal style formed during earlier years of travel.
After 1700, his fame was such that he was summoned to execute commissions in Vienna and in Florence. In 1712 he accompanied his nephew Marco (1676–1729) to England, where for the next five years he executed many major commissions.
On the return trip to Venice in 1716, Ricci stopped in Paris, where he was accepted into the Académie Royale de Peinture. Back in Venice, the collaboration between Sebastiano as figure painter and Marco as architectural and landscape specialist continued and intensified during the 1720s. Until his death in 1734, the older Ricci continued to work on commissions from rich Venetians or important foreign patrons such as the Duke of Savoy and the Emperor Charles VI.