Landscape with Travellers, Two Riding in a Carriage Driven by a Postilion and a Third on Horseback behind

Marco Ricci focused this evocative, carefully finished landscape on people going about their daily business in the spacious outdoors. Two gentlemen ride in comfort, chatting animatedly as the postilion riding on the near horse guides the team of horses. By using a lighter tone for the middle distance, where another group of travelers descends the hill, Ricci conveyed the expansive feeling of traveling by carriage in the open air and hinted at the balmy atmosphere. Drawing even more lightly, he suggested a town in the background as a destination.

Scholars are uncertain whether Ricci made this composition as a study for a painting or print or an independent, finished work of art. He repeated the same scene with differing details and a higher viewpoint in a later painting. Two etchings, including one made posthumously by Ricci's nephew, repeat the drawing's design almost exactly.