Stefano della Bella and Pierre Mariette II
Plate 1 from the series “Collection of Various Vases”
1640-1650
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- Artist: Stefano della Bella
- Publisher: Pierre Mariette II
Plate 1 from the series “Collection of Various Vases”
1640-1650
Physical Qualities
Etching, Sheet: 93 × 189 mm. (3 11/16 × 7 7/16 in.)
Plate: 91 × 187 mm. (3 9/16 × 7 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Blanche Adler Memorial Fund
Object Number
1962.102.1
While working in Paris in the 1640s the Florentine artist Stefano della Bella created several series of ornament prints, including this group of six etchings. Vase designs offered della Bella the means to showcase his fertile imagination and calligraphic line work. The artist animated the vessels with an array of fanciful motifs, creatures and mythological figures, as well as lush flower arrangements, whose exuberance seems to exceed the confines of the compositions.
BMA, Jacobs wing rotation, 2 March - 27 July 2012.
Inscribed: Recto: in image, in the middle inside the central vase, in plate "Raccolta/ di vasi di-/ versi di Stef/ de la Bella/ Fiorentino"; below image, lower left, in plate on the bottom left "Stef. de la Bella invent. fecit."; below image, lower center, in plate "1"; below image, lower right, in plate "P. Mariette excud. cum Privil. Regis Christ."
Markings: WM: letters CM: blue square with the initials MA
