Errand Boy Seated on a Basket

In 2021 this canvas went to a restorer's studio in Milan, and the cleaning brought back details that had been out of sight for generations. Under the yellowed varnish were the boy's clothes as Ceruti painted them around 1735. A jacket mended over and over. A cap clumsily sewn back together with red thread. That is roughly the attention a painter of the period would spend on a silk sleeve in the portrait of somebody who mattered, and Ceruti spent it on a market porter's working kit. The restoration was paid for by the Amici di Brera, the museum's supporters' association. The boy is sitting on the wicker basket he hauls goods in, and he has no shoes.