Artwork story
About A Corinthian capital on the ground at left, a monument with figures in low relief at left in the middleground, various animals and two shepherds at right, plate 4 from "Roman landscapes and ruins" (Paysages et ruines de Rome)
The artist and artwork
Stefano della Bella made this landscape etching around 1646 as plate 4 of Roman Landscapes and Ruins. The Florentine artist drew directly from the world around him and translated quick observations into etched lines. He gathers a fallen Corinthian capital, a relief-covered monument, tall trees, animals, two shepherds, and distant ruins inside an almost circular view. The Met identifies this impression as the fourth state of nine, meaning the copper plate was altered and printed in successive versions. French publisher François Langlois carried the Italian view into a broader print market.
The world around it
The print appeared during the final years of the Thirty Years' War, after Europe had endured decades of conflict, disease, and displacement. Della Bella worked within an international world of courts, publishers, collectors, and mobile images. A Met Bulletin notes that seventeenth-century city dwellers bought prints almost as casually as later audiences bought postcards and weekly magazines. Roman ruins could therefore circulate far beyond Rome, offering buyers antiquity, travel, and landscape in portable form while the continent remained unsettled and difficult to cross.
A detail to notice
The most revealing object is the Corinthian capital lying at the lower edge. A capital normally crowns a column, and the Corinthian order is known for elaborate leafy ornament; della Bella places that symbol of height and refinement on the ground among stones and vegetation. Shepherds and animals continue their routines nearby. Ancient Rome becomes a lived countryside where fragments of empire have joined the terrain. The circular composition strengthens the effect: dark trees press in from the left, the pastoral group occupies the opening, and pale ruins recede almost casually into the distance.
Look closer: materials, scale, and subjects
The recorded object is print made in Etching; fourth state of nine (Talbierska) and held in the Drawings and Prints department.
Recorded dimensions include Plate: 5 1/4 × 5 3/8 in. (13.4 × 13.6 cm); Sheet: 5 1/2 × 5 9/16 in. (14 × 14.1 cm).
Subject terms include Monuments, Cows, Horses, Trees, Shepherds, and Rome. Treat them as guideposts, not a complete interpretation.
Collection history and public-domain source
The collection credit line is Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917.
The individual artwork page and official image were verified as Public Domain on 2026-08-23.
No Context Gallery independently uses the public-domain image. The source museum has not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated itself with these products.
Research sources
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