Study for the Head of Charon for "Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl Showing the Golden Bough to Charon"

Currently not on view

Study for the Head of Charon for "Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl Showing the Golden Bough to Charon"

1648-1650

Pietro Testa (Italian, 1612–1650)

Testa was one of the most intriguing artists of seventeenth-century Italy. A melancholy and isolated individual, his primary artistic production took the form of prints and drawings, often expressing complicated allegorical and theoretical ideas. This arresting study is for a figure in a painting depicting an incident from Virgil's Aeneid and was done in the last years of the artist's life, which ended in 1650 with his suicide by drowning in the Tiber.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Study for the Head of Charon for "Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl Showing the Golden Bough to Charon"

Date:

1648-1650

Artist:

Pietro Testa (Italian, 1612–1650)

Medium:

Black chalk on laid paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 9 15/16 x 7 5/8 inches (25.2 x 19.4 cm)

Classification:

Drawings

Credit Line:

Purchased with the Alice Newton Osborn Fund, 1985

Accession Number:

1985-72-1

Geography:

Made in Italy, Europe

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Currently not on view