Les ieux plaisris de l'enfance
Designed and published by Jacques Stella French
Engraved by Claudine Bouzonnet Stella French
Claudine Bouzonnet Stella succeeded her late uncle, Jacques Stella, as the head of her family’s print workshop at the Louvre royal palace in 1657. That year, she engraved and published Stella’s designs for fifty scenes of putti playing games, including the one seen here. This book circulated throughout Europe, eventually serving as a visual source for the eighteenth-century decorative arts. The Met’s tea service produced by the Doccia porcelain manufactory, for example, features a game of piggyback taken from one of Bouzonnet Stella’s engravings, titled Le cheval fondu.
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