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| Pietro Testa Self-portrait ca. 1645 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
The drawings and etchings of Pietro Testa (1611-1650) survive in plentiful numbers, though his paintings are rare. The sketches and preparatory works reveal an otherworldly idealism and an affinity for intricate webs of meaning.
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| Pietro Testa Allegorical Figures of Reason and Wisdom ca. 1630 drawing Museum Kunstpalast Dusseldorf |
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| Pietro Testa Death of Sinorix 17th century drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Pietro Testa Death of Sinorix 17th century drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Pietro Testa Two Women di sotto in su 17th century drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Pietro Testa Achilles dragging the body of Hector behind his chariot around the walls of Troy ca. 1648-50 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Pietro Testa Triumph of the Artist-Virtuoso on Parnassus 1644-46 Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen |
Testa's painting (above) and etching (below) of the artist's conquest of Parnassus demonstrate his taste for extreme elaboration. Italian collectors of the mid-17th century were in fact happy to occupy themselves with deciphering Testa's intricate schemes of meaning. Later generations have had less patience and have often been inclined to find nothing in these pictures but a tangle of figures.
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| Pietro Testa Triumph of the Artist-Virtuoso on Parnassus 1640s etching National Gallery of Art (U.S.) |
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| Pietro Testa Youth in the Service of Virtue & the Sciences ca. 1644 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Pietro Testa Allegory of Painting ca. 1637-38 etching National Gallery of Art (U.S.) |
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| Pietro Testa Aeneas and the Cumean Sybil showing the Golden Bough to Charon on the Banks of the River Styx 1648-50 private collection |
The scene above – one of the last the artist painted – represents a literary episode that has been explicated by curators at the Philadelphia Museum of Art – "... the dramatic incident from Virgil's Aeneid in which Aeneas tries to cross the Styx in search of his father, Anchises, in the underworld. The attempt entails bribing the fearsome boatman Charon to take him across the river, which Aeneas, helped by the Cumean Sybil, succeeds in doing by offering Charon the Golden Bough, the bough of destiny long hidden. Virgil, who dwelt deliciously on the unspeakable horrors of hell, described the boatman thusly: "a grim ferryman guards the waters of this river, Charon, hideous in his squalor, on his chin there lies a mass of untrimmed gray hair; his eyes are fixed and fiery." Testa's challenge was to depict Charon's terrifying face while at the same time showing the boatman's wonder at the spectacle of the Golden Bough."
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| Pietro Testa Self-portrait 17th century etching Rijksmuseum |