Stefano della Bella Florence 1610 - 1664

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Description

Stefano della Bella
three camels and their driver, a pyramid in the distance
pen and brown ink over black chalk

Provenance

probably Comte de Caylus (L. 474);
sale, London, Christie's, 20 June 1822, lot 43 (according to a note on the verso of the mount)

Exhibited

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Italiaanse Tekeningen, 1970, cat. no. 110, reproduced p. 86, fig. 73

Literature

Review of 1970 Amsterdam exhibition, in Master Drawings, IX, 1971, p. 65

Catalogue Note

This very charming drawing is not directly related to any print by Della Bella, although two are similar (de Vesme 706 and 707). Phyllis Massar writes that Stefano would have seen camels in Rome when he drew the retinue of the Polish Ambassador, but that he might also have encountered them in Florence where apparently Duke Ferdinand II had tried to establish them as beasts of burden in Tuscany. Two prints of heads of camels are also known, de Vesme 726 and 727 (see Phyllis D. Massar, Presenting Stefano della Bella, New York 1971, pp. 107 and 133).