Venus and Adonis
Pietro Testa
1631/37
Medium
etching on laid paper
Dimensions
plate: 36 x 45.5 cm (14 3/16 x 17 15/16 in.) sheet: 36.2 x 45.6 cm (14 1/4 x 17 15/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Accession Number
2001.76.2
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...