The Prophecy of Basilides
c. 1648/1649
Medium
pen and brown ink with black and brown washes over black chalk with traces of red chalk, on two joined sheets of greenish-blue laid paper, squared in red chalk, laid down on old mount
Dimensions
sheet: 36.8 × 59.8 cm (14 1/2 × 23 9/16 in.) mount: 38.3 × 61.3 cm (15 1/16 × 24 1/8 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
William B. O'Neal Fund and Gift of Funds from Ann and Matthew Nimetz, and from Andrea Woodner
Accession Number
2022.160.1
About the Artist
Pietro Testa · 1612–1650
Pietro Testa was born in Lucca in 1612 and, in accordance with the conventions of Italian artistic training, made his way to Rome while still young. There he studied under two of the leading painters of the early seventeenth century: Domenichino, from whom he absorbed a taste for classical restraint and narrative clarity, and Pietro da Cortona, whose more exuberant Baroque manner offered a contras...