Study for 'The Dream of Saint Joseph'
1635/37
Medium
Pen and brown ink, with black chalk and traces of incising, on tan laid paper, laid down on cream wove paper
Dimensions
36.8 × 24.2 cm (14 1/2 × 9 9/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
149719
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This study is the last in the sequence of three composition drawings for The Dream of Saint Joseph. It differs from the other two in the pose of the figure of the Virgin, which, along with the figure of the Christ child, Testa has cut out and attached. Such attention to detail characterizes Testa's rigorous preparatory process, and it contrasts sharply with the freedom with which he etched the plate.
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...