Venus and Cupid

This canvas spent time in England, at Belvoir Castle with the Dukes of Rutland, under the name of Parmigianino. It is by Camillo Boccaccino, painted in Cremona in the 1530s, within a few years of the big altarpiece of his that Brera owns. In March 2018 the museum opened the sixth of its Dialogo displays, which set his sacred and his profane work in one room, and this Venus came up from the collection of Geo Poletti for the occasion. It has been in Milan ever since, on long-term loan from the Poletti heirs and not museum property, which is why it carries no Brera inventory number. The museum's own label names the boy Amore.