Terms and conditions of use
Self-portrait
(c. 1645)
Medium
etching
Measurements
21.9 × 16.3 cm (image) 22.2 × 16.6 cm (image and text) 23.0 × 17.0 cm (sheet, trimmed within platemark)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1963
Gallery location
16th & 17th Century Gallery - Painting and Sculpture
Mezzanine linked to Level 1, NGV International
About this work
Pietro Testa arrived in Rome from his hometown of Lucca at the age of sixteen to train and work as a painter and printmaker. He joined the studio of Domenichino, which was known for its intellectual climate, and worked for important patrons recording the antiquities of Rome. He also trained with the distinguished German printmaker Joachim von Sandrart, and became exceptionally skilled in the medium of etching. Testa’s prints were complex, both technically and conceptually, and remain among his most original and important works. In this self-portrait, made only five years before his premature death, Testa depicts himself holding the tools of his trade, a drawing board and a porte-crayon.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Rome, Italy
Catalogue/s Raisonné
Bartsch 1; Bellini 35 iii/iii
Edition
3rd of 3 states
Printing/Publishing
published by Arnold van Westerhout, Rome
Inscription
printed in ink l.l.: Ritratto di Pietro / delineauit et Sculptsit
printed in ink l.r.: Testa Pictore eccelte (. under te) / Romæ superiorum permisu / Arnoldo Van Westerhout formis
Accession Number
1320-5
Departments
International Prints / International Prints and Drawings
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of the Joe White Bequest
Subjects (general)
Portraits
Subjects (specific)
artists (visual artists) drawing (image-making) gaze (psychoanalytical concept) half figures self-portraits Testa, Pietro
Movements
Baroque