拍品专文
the present lot, unrecorded until its reappearance at a Sotheby's London sale in 1989 [see provenance] is an important addition to the small oeuvre of Testa's painted works, most of which date from the 1640's. In the last two years of his life Testa devised his important and influential series of Scenes from the Life of Achilles. The present lot corresponds with his etching of The Birth and Infancy of Achilles, in reverse, with the only significant change being in the posture of the upside down infant Achilles. Although there is no reference on the print to a related painting, the fact that the painting is in the opposite sense lends credence to the argument that it is the print that derives from the painting.
E.Copper in the exhibition catalogue, Pietro Testa 1612-1650, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988, p. 257, argues that Testa's likely source for the life of Achilles was probably 4th Century Roman reliefs although she believes this to be in a generalized sense, such as in the compact figural grouping and narrative sweep of the composition rather than borrowing from specific examples. Nor does she believe that there is a single ancient literary source from which he culled all of the details of his inventions; rather it is more likely that his sources came from Renaissance commentaries, such as Natale Conti's Mythologiae.
In the background on the right Thetis is in labour. In order to ensure her children are not tainted by mortality Thetis subjects them all to trial by fire, here referred to by the two men dragging a brazier. Only Achilles survives the test, partly because his mother strengthens him by covering him with coals at night. Thetis consults the Delphic oracle as to the fate of her beloved son, and on being told that "he would die in the flower of his youth" [Cropper, op. cit., p. 258] she attempts to make him immortal by plunging him into waters from the River Styx, shown here in the foreground. According to the legend, Achilles becomes virtually invunerable, except where his mother holds him by his ankles as she submerges him in the water. The grouping of women by the trees represents Thetis and her sisters, the Nereids, combining the episodes of her consultation with the Oracle, and her subsequent collection of the magical waters. At the top of the picture Achilles is entrusted to the Centaur, Chiron.
Cropper comments of this composition that, "In this compact way the whole of Achilles' story - his epic deeds, his victory and death - is foretold" and that "The individual scenes in his series indicate... Testa's revived interest in how the temporal unfolding of an epic narrative might be fitted into a single moment that could fortell the ending of the story."
E.Copper in the exhibition catalogue, Pietro Testa 1612-1650, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988, p. 257, argues that Testa's likely source for the life of Achilles was probably 4th Century Roman reliefs although she believes this to be in a generalized sense, such as in the compact figural grouping and narrative sweep of the composition rather than borrowing from specific examples. Nor does she believe that there is a single ancient literary source from which he culled all of the details of his inventions; rather it is more likely that his sources came from Renaissance commentaries, such as Natale Conti's Mythologiae.
In the background on the right Thetis is in labour. In order to ensure her children are not tainted by mortality Thetis subjects them all to trial by fire, here referred to by the two men dragging a brazier. Only Achilles survives the test, partly because his mother strengthens him by covering him with coals at night. Thetis consults the Delphic oracle as to the fate of her beloved son, and on being told that "he would die in the flower of his youth" [Cropper, op. cit., p. 258] she attempts to make him immortal by plunging him into waters from the River Styx, shown here in the foreground. According to the legend, Achilles becomes virtually invunerable, except where his mother holds him by his ankles as she submerges him in the water. The grouping of women by the trees represents Thetis and her sisters, the Nereids, combining the episodes of her consultation with the Oracle, and her subsequent collection of the magical waters. At the top of the picture Achilles is entrusted to the Centaur, Chiron.
Cropper comments of this composition that, "In this compact way the whole of Achilles' story - his epic deeds, his victory and death - is foretold" and that "The individual scenes in his series indicate... Testa's revived interest in how the temporal unfolding of an epic narrative might be fitted into a single moment that could fortell the ending of the story."