Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella

This engraving is part of Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella’s The Passion of Christ series, based on paintings by her uncle, the French painter Jacques Stella. Claudine’s plates remained unpublished during her lifetime, but she stipulated in her will that they be published soon after her death. In an apparent attempt to increase the market value of her uncle’s work, a family member replaced Jacques Stella’s name on the plates with that of French painter Nicolas Poussin, a more famous artist. Collectors and dealers do not appear to have needed the extra incentive to collect Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella’s prints, however. As the French artist Pierre-Jean Mariette declared, she “ought to be ranked among the very best of engravers.”