Antonio Ricci (painter)

He came to Spain in 1583, along with several other painters accompanying Federico Zuccaro, to perform decorative work at El Escorial.

The poet, Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, in his Donaires del Parnaso, dedicated some verses to an "Antonio Riche", which was likely him.

Little of his work has been preserved, although he is known to have presided over a busy workshop, where one of his clients was the Patriarch, Juan de Ribera.

Among his few identified works are portraits of the Dukes of Ciriza and Sister Margarita de la Cruz, the daughter of Emperor Maximilian II, which is in the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales.

In 1616, he was appointed as Madrid's official "Inspector of Cleaning and Paving" and, in 1631, wrote a letter to a Don Alonso de Villegas, detailing his experiments in alchemy.