By the end of 1716, with his nephew, he left England for Paris, where he met Watteau, and submitted his "Triumph of the Wisdom over Ignorance" in order to gain admission to the Royal French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which was granted on 18 May 1718. He returned to Venice in 1718 a wealthy man, and bought comfortable lodgings in the Old Procuratory of St. Mark. That same year, the Riccis decorated the villa of Giovanni Francesco Bembo in Belvedere, near Belluno.