Lot Essay
This large composition in pen and ink on vellum can be compared with a similar sheet with a Battle scene in the Royal Collection at Windsor (RCIN 904555; see A. Blunt, The Drawings of G. B. Castiglione and Stefano della Bella in the Collection of H.lM. the Queen, London, 1954, no. 12, ill.). Recent scholarship has shown how Stefano della Bella had already begun producing large scale drawings on vellum as a teenager (see S. Rinaldi, ‘Early Genres Scenes in Pen on Vellum by Stefano della Bella’, Master Drawings, LX, no. 3, Autumn 2022, pp. 343-354).