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Decorative frieze with tritons and dolphins

Maker

(artist)
1610-1664

Title

Medium

red chalk on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 7.9 cm
Width: 26.4 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.1865

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Stefano della Bella is best known as an etcher of small-scale scenes of urban and rural life and landscape. While in Paris in the 1640s he was inspired by a set of cartouches by Agostino Mitelli to produce four suites of decorative prints combining human, plant and animals forms and utilising motifs from the antique. This painterly red chalk sketch relates to one of these frieze-like etchings and is just one example of the many ornamental subjects collected by Robert Witt.

Notes

A design related to Plate 13 of 'Ornamenti di fregi e fogliami' (de Vesme 999 III/V), but in the etching the mask at centre is removed (see impression in BM, 1871,0513.367); this was a series of 16 prints in shapes of friezes.

Provenance

Orioli (Florence); purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), n.d.; Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

The Witt Collection - Four centuries of drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 03/04/2004-20/06/2004

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: upper centre edge: fragment of a cartouche or shield edge.

Inscription: none.

Collector's mark: none.

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