TESTA, Pietro
(b. 1611, Lucca, d. 1650, Roma)

Biography

Italian engraver and painter active in Rome. He trained with Domenichino and was employed by Nicolas Poussin's patron Cassiano dal Pozzo to make antiquarian drawings, but his bizarre imagination brings him closer in spirit to his more Romantic contemporaries such as Castiglione and Rosa. His paintings are rare and he is better known as an etcher. Testa died by drowning, and it was rumoured that he killed himself.