Stefano della Bella Florence 1610 - 1664

This elegant figure is likely to be one of the costume designs which Stefano della Bella created for the Accademia degli Immobili in Florence in the 1650s.  This was an aristocratic society which, alongside other 'chivalric' activities, commissioned and performed musical and theatrical events.  Costumes are recorded as having been conceived by the members of the Immobili, but clearly an artist such as Stefano was needed to realise their ideas on paper.  This design is very comparable with groups of others in the British Museum, the Uffizi and at Windsor, and in particular with the designs for the 1658 performance of Hipermestra, some of which were executed, as here, in pen and brown ink with grey wash (see P. Dearborn Massar, 'Costume Drawings by Stefano della Bella for the Florentine Theater' , Master Drawings, vol.VIII, no. 3, Autumn 1970, pp. 243-266).