Master Art

The two soldiers at the upper left of this sheet of studies, one priming his rifle and another firing from the edge of a cliff, are repeated in a small drawing by Stefano della Bella in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey. The standing soldier in the centre of the composition, as well as the seated cavalier to his right, reappear in another small pen sketch formerly included in an album of drawings by Della Bella assembled by the late 18th century calligrapher Thomas Tomkins and dispersed at auction in 1975. A figure of a drummer, very close to that seen at the top left of the present sheet, appears in reverse in the left background of a drawing of A Standard Bearer in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.

Similar studies of soldiers are found in a number of Della Bella’s series of small etchings of military subjects executed in the 1640s, such as the Receuil de diverses pièces très nécessaires à la fortification of c.1638-1643 and the Varii capricci militari of c.1641, as well as the Dessins de quelques conduits de troupes of c.1641-1647. The studies of horsemen in this drawing may also be loosely related to some of the series of nineteen prints entitled Diverses exercises de cavalerie, executed c.1642-1645. Finally, very similar figures of musketeers appear in two etchings from the series La milice moderne, published in 1646.