etching, first state, an excellent impression, on laid paper, 455 x 610 mm., light central vertical fold, printer's crease upper right, minor cockling, surface dirt, with two small areas of rubbing to the lower left corner along the upper line of lettering, [Le Blanc, vol. III, no.6; Passavant 2,3; Robert-Dumesnil 7,11], circa 1621 The present etching portrays the annual procession and presentation of tributes to the grand duke of Tuscany, performed in Piazza della Signoria, Florence, on the feast-day of Saint John the Baptist, June 24, 1621. Robert-Dumesnil notes that their is included amongst the throng of paraders on foot and horsemen holding banners and tributes, a self-portait of the artist on the left, where he looks out at the viewer with a pen in his hand, while he is shaded from the heat of the day by a parasol held by an assistant.[1] Jacques Stella, son of the French Baroque painter and art dealer Francois Stella (1563-1605), is recorded as having worked in Florence between 1616 to 1622, where he undertook commissions for Cosimo II de' Medici. It was here that Stella would have met Jacques Callot, who was also working for Cosimo II, and whose own etchings appear to have influenced the present work. Stella later moved to Rome, around 1623, where he came into contact with Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), who was to become a close friend and have a great influence on Stella's later artistic output. We have found two other impressions of the work, one in the Getty Collection (Special Collections accn. no. P910002), and another at the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, but have been unable to trace any copies at auction. [1] Robert-Dumesnil, A. Le peintre-graveur , t. 7, p. 161-162