Death Beating a Drum
ca. 1653
Medium
Etching
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. William Greenough, 1937
Accession Number
37.30.1(7)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Stefano della Bella’s etching *Death Beating a Drum* (ca. 1653) captures the Baroque era’s fascination with mortality through a striking allegorical. Working in Florence and Paris, della Bella celebrated for his lively, finely etchings that blended theatrical drama with meticulous observation. Here, the skeletal figure of Death energetically plays a drum, a simple yet powerful motif that transforms an everyday instrument into a symbol of life’s abrupt end. Etching allowed della Bella to reach a wide audience with affordable prints, making moral and religious themes accessible beyond palace wa...
About the Artist
Stefano della Bella · 1610–1664
Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) was one of the most prolific and versatile printmakers of the Italian Baroque period, leaving behind 1,052 prints and several thousand drawings that captured the vivid essence of 17th-century European life. Born in Florence on May 18, 1610, to a family of artists, he trained initially as a goldsmith before studying painting under Cesare Dandini and etching under Rem...