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| Wenceslaus Hollar Portrait of Stefano della Bella 1649 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
As a Florentine artist devoted to the service of the Medici dynasty, Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) created thousands of etchings expressing the tastes and manners of the mid-17th century. His patrons arranged for della Bella to spend much of the 1630s studying and working in Rome and the 1640s in Paris. He returned to Florence in 1650. The lifetime's engravings, in the words of curators at the Getty, 'recorded the lavish theatrical pageants of Florence's nobility, daily life in Rome and Paris, and the battlefield realities of the Thirty Years War.'
This first group of etchings by Stefano della Bella – from his Paris period – consists of designs for ceremonial cartouches, shield-shaped blanks to be filled with text or a coat-of-arms and surrounded by heraldic and/or purely fanciful figures and creatures.
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| Stefano della Bella Title page for Nouvelles inventions de Cartouches 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche crowned with Helmet & Leopards (as used above) 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche flanked by Winged Infant Satyrs riding on Heads of Rams 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche formed by a Tiger Skin and flanked by Centaurs 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche with Ducks and Nymphs 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche with Dragons, their Tails supporting a Crown 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche with Apollo & Pan 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche formed by Drapery supported by Skeletons 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche formed by drapery and topped by skeletons 1647 etching British Museum |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche with Lionesses and Infant 1646 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Two different halves of Cartouches, each with Eagle & Serpent 1646 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Stefano della Bella Cartouche framed by Ducks & Weeds 1647 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
All but one of these reproductions are from the enormous collection of the artist's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The final image is an etched title-page that mimics a 17th-century Italian-style proscenium stage.
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| Stefano della Bella Title page for Il Nino Figlio as theater curtain, with spectators below ca. 1655 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |