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| Pietro Testa Landscape with Satyrs & Putti 17th century drawing Rijksmusuem |
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| Pietro Testa Bacchanal with Nymphs & Shepherds 17th century drawing Rijksmuseum |
The artist Pietro Testa (1611-1650) died, like Mozart, while still in his thirties – except that Pietro Testa, unlike Mozart, committed suicide. In Patrons and Painters (that Bible of 17th-century Italian art) Francis Haskell turns his attention to the largely forgotten Testa –
"Like his close friend Poussin he was a stubborn, proud, self-educated man of independent views. He had come to Rome from his native Lucca when in his early twenties, sometime before 1630, and had at once drifted into the orbit of the private connoisseurs rather than the great patrons of the church. ... His biographers all describe him as strange, solitary and melancholy, and his more attractive paintings reflect this side of his character – landscapes, above all, of Titianesque origin often disturbed by threatening winds, with small figures from the Old Testament or mythology sheltering from the elements or occasionally relaxing in the sun."
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| Pietro Testa Landscape with Nymphs & Satyrs 17th century drawing British Museum |
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| Pietro Testa Landscape with classical figures 17th century drawing British Museum |
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| Pietro Testa Venus Presenting Armor to Aeneas 17th century etching Rijksmuseum |
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| Pietro Testa St. Jerome ca. 1631-37 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Pietro Testa The Prodigal Son laboring among the Swine ca. 1645 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Pietro Testa Juno with the Body of Argus 17th century drawing British Museum |
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| Pietro Testa Landscape 17th century drawing British Museum |
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| Pietro Testa Bacchanal with Putti 1640 drawing Rijksmuseum |
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| Pietro Testa Allegory of Autumn 17th century courtesy of Christie's |
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| Pietro Testa Venus and Adonis ca.1635 Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna |
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| Pietro Testa Massacre of the Innocents ca. 1639-42 Spada Gallery, Rome |
Unlike Poussin, Testa never managed to attract reliable patrons for his easel-painting. "In his discouragement, he turned to engraving. ... Here, at last, he met with the success he desesrved – but even that was bitter, for it only emphasized his failure as a large-scale painter. In an agony of despair he threw himself into the Tiber."
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| Pietro Testa Alexander the Great rescued from drowning in the River Cydnus ca. 1650 Metropolitan Museum of Art |