Group of Five Male Figures in Half-length

Group of Five Male Figures in Half-length

Stefano della Bella

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing was previously considered anonymous, until an attribution to Stefano della Bella was proposed on the mount by Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani and Carmen C. Bambach. The drawing is datable to the 1640's, when della Bella was intending to draft his treatise on drawing, "I principii del disegno."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Group of Five Male Figures in Half-lengthGroup of Five Male Figures in Half-lengthGroup of Five Male Figures in Half-lengthGroup of Five Male Figures in Half-lengthGroup of Five Male Figures in Half-length

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.