Stella was the youngest daughter of a successful French goldsmith. Despite the restrictions placed on women in art academies at the time, her family’s prominent social status allowed her and her sisters, Françoise and Claudine, to receive private training.

Her uncle Jaques Stella, a painter and close friend of Nicolas Poussin, assisted his nieces and nephew in their artwork, inviting them to live in his prestigious lodgings at the Louvre. As the youngest of the children, Antoinette was additionally trained by her older siblings. The family frequently collaborated in painting, engraving, and publishing prints.

Remembered for her masterfully executed aquatints and engravings, Stella suffered a tragic fall and died in Paris at the age of 35. One of Stella’s most notable works, The Entrance of the Emperor Sigismond into Mantua, 1675, consists of 25 relief-style engravings on paper depicting crowds of men, women, children, and horses traveling alongside the emperor.