Plate 9: two horsemen at left galloping uphill towards the right, a horse and seated man to right, from 'Various landscapes' (Divers paysages) 1636 - 1646

Stefano della Bella created this print called Plate 9: two horsemen at left galloping uphill towards the right, a horse and seated man to right, from 'Various landscapes', sometime in the mid-17th century. Della Bella was an Italian printmaker, who spent time in Florence and Paris, associated with the Medici court and then with Louis XIV. He made this print as part of a series of landscapes, probably intended for collectors and connoisseurs, who would have kept them in albums. What does this image tell us about the role of landscape in 17th-century European culture? Note the way that the figures are dwarfed by the scenery, a compositional technique that emphasizes the power of nature over man. The image creates a mood of understated drama. The tower in the background and the figures on horseback suggest a narrative. Is this a hunting party? Are they soldiers? What stories would contemporary viewers have brought to an image like this? Historians of prints and drawings rely on a range of resources: catalogues raisonnés, which document an artist's entire graphic output; inventories of collections; and social histories of the print market. All of these help us to understand the place of this image in its own time.