• Giovanni Andrea Podestà was an Italian painter and engraver.
• Trained at the school of Giovanni Andrea Ferrari and Domenico Fiasella.
• He moved to Rome when he was little more than a teenager.
• His best known and most valuable work is certainly the Statue of Venus with numerous putti, a work derived from a painting by Titian Vecellio and dedicated to his benefactor Cassiano dal Pozzo.
• In this and other circles of artists, Podestà trained and perfected his technique, especially for etching.
• Having entered dal Pozzo's good graces, the Genoese artist worked alongside other well-known artists of the neo-Venetian current active in Rome in those years, such as
Pietro Testa and Benedetto Castiglione.
• Podestà also made engravings for Prince Paolo Giordano Orsini II of Bracciano.
• In 1650, at the age of thirty, Podestà joined the prestigious Academy of San Luca in Rome.
Giovanni Andrea Podestà, An Allegory of Vanity, before 1641
Original, Galleria Spada, Rome. Visited in 2025.
Giovanni Andrea Podestà, Putti as Allegory of Music
Original, Sotheby`s, New York. Visited in 2020-2023.
Giovanni Andrea Podestà after Titian, Putti before a statue of Venus; 1636
Giovanni Andrea Podestà after Titian, Putti before a statue of Venus; 1636
Original, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Visited in 2017-2026.
Giovanni Andrea Podestà after Titian, Putti before a statue of Venus; 1636
