Minneapolis Institute of Art

Achille trascina il corpo di Ettore (Achilles dragging the body of Hector around the wall of Troy)

Pietro Testa

Date

c. 1648

Medium

Etching with pen and ink additions

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Homer's Illiad inspired this harrowing scene. Achilles avenged the death of his friend Patroclus by killing Hector and then tied the body to a chariot and dragged it around the walls fo Troy. Pietro Testa borrowed ancient monuments of Rome (the Colosseum, the Torre delle Milizei, and the Pantheon) for his backdrop. On the parapet above the arched gate, Hector's wife, Andromache, faints, and other bystanders seems anquished as well. Nevertheless, Fame crowns Achilles with a laurel wreath. Pietro Testa developed his own classicizing vocabulary, but the nudity that he adopted from antique sculptures did not completely appeal to a previous owner of this print. Someone has used a pen to add fig leaves to cover the genitals of Achilles and Hector and the breast of Fame. Italy, Europe

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