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STEFANO DELLA BELLA

Florence 1610-1664 Florence

Landscape with a Peasant Woman Approaching a Farmhouse

Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over traces of an underdrawing in black chalk.

79 x 202 mm. (3 1/8 x 8 in.)

Watermark: A crowned shield with a cross, the letters IM below.

PROVENANCE: From an album of drawings by Stefano della Bella assembled by Thomas Tomkins, London; His posthumous sale, London, Mr. Hickman’s Gallery, 25-28 February 1818, lot 289 (‘The Works of Steffano della Bella, consisting of a number of very fine Original Drawings in Pen and Ink – collected by the late Mr. Tomkins, with an additional Title, written by himself. 270.’), bt. Holroyd for £32.10/-; Robert Stayner Holford, M.P., Dorchester House, London and Westonbirt, Gloucestershire; By descent to his son, Lt. Col. Sir George Lindsay Holford, K.C.V.O., Dorchester House, London and Westonbirt, Gloucestershire; His posthumous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 22 May 1928, lot 29B (‘A Series of some 270 drawings by Stefano della Bella, of a variety of subjects, including animals, birds, landscapes, figures, vessels, etc., collected by Thomas Tomkins, mounted in a finely bound red morocco volume with gilt tooling’), bt. Castagnari for £145; Private collection; Anonymous sale (‘A Collection of Drawings by Stefano Della Bella, the Property of a Gentleman’), London, Christie’s, 18 March 1975, lot 4 (bt. Schumann for 800 gns., or $2,016); Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 10 July 2002, lot 119.

LITERATURE: Jolanta Talbierska, Stefano della Bella (1610-1664): Etchings from the Collection of the Print Room of the Warsaw University Library, Warsaw, 2001, p.89, under no.179.

	A hugely talented and prolific artist, Stefano della Bella succeeded Jacques Callot as Medici court designer and printmaker. Between 1639 and 1650 he worked in France, establishing a flourishing career in Paris and publishing numerous prints; indeed, the majority of his prints date from this fertile period. After his return to Florence in 1650, della Bella continued to enjoy Medici patronage. His oeuvre numbers over 1,000 etchings, and many times more drawings; all works of considerable energy and inventiveness. The present sheet was once part of an important album of drawings by Stefano della Bella assembled by the calligrapher Thomas Tomkins (1743-1816) (1). Containing a representative selection of della Bella’s drawings from the entire course of his career, the album is first recorded in 1818 at the posthumous sale of the Tomkins collection, which also included a large number of engravings after Old Masters and drawings by contemporary English artists, as well as Dutch paintings. The Tomkins album was later acquired by the prominent collector and connoisseur Robert Holford (1808-1892), remaining intact in the Holford collection until its sale at auction in London in 1928, when some drawings were removed. Nevertheless, some 241 of the Tomkins drawings, including the present sheet, remained together as a group until finally dispersed at auction at Christie’s in London in 1975. This drawing is similar in format to, and may be contemporary with, a series of twelve prints entitled Divers Paysages (2). Dedicated to Louis II de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien, and published by Israël Henriet in Paris, this series of landscape etchings has been dated by Alexandre de Vesme to c.1643, during Della Bella’s stay in France. In the absence of a firm date of publication, however, it is also possible that these prints were designed in the 1650’s, following the artist’s return to Florence, and that the plates were sent to Paris to be printed. Among a number of stylistically comparable drawings by della Bella is a Landscape with a Farmhouse, on the London art market in 1991 (3). Notes 1. The title page of the album, written by Tomkins, was inscribed ‘270 DESIGNS By Steffano della Bella. A Native of Florence born 1610, a person of great judgment and fruitful invention; his drawings with the pen are much admired for freedom, taste and truth; his etchings are in the manner of Callot, under whom he studied. Collected by Thomas Tomkins.’ 2. Alexandre de Vesme and Phyllis Dearborn Massar, Stefano Della Bella: Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1971, Vol.I, pp.117-118, nos.757-768; Vol.II, pp.147-150, figs.757-768. 3. Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s, 10 December 1991, lot 147.
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STEFANO DELLA BELLA

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