Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella

Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella (7 July 1636 – 1 October 1697) was a French engraver, most of whose prints were after works by Nicolas Poussin, or by her uncle Jacques Stella, from whom she received her artistic education.

[2] Having collaborated with various engravers for many years before achieving considerable success as a painter, Stella had decided to set up a workshop to produce prints after his designs.

[3] In the same year she issued Les Jeux et Plaisirs de l'Enfance, a set of 50 plates which she had engraved herself after a series of drawings by Jacques Stella.

[3] Although these too were published as works after Jacques Stella, no originals have been traced, nor are any drawings mentioned in a surviving inventory of the workshop, leading some art historians to suggest that the designs may have been by Bouzonnet-Stella herself.

[3] In the late 18th century Joseph Strutt wrote of her prints:If they be not executed with that precision and neatness, which are found in the best French masters, they possess such beauties as overbalance all defects of that nature.