The Getty Lusts After a Parmigianino That’s PG-13, If Not ‘R’

ARTNET NEWS
By Blake Gopnik

THE DAILY PIC (#1628): The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles recently announced that it’s planning to buy this painting by the great Mannerist painter Parmigianino – or, as some have argued, by his follower Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli – so long as the British export laws end up letting to happen. Critics often talk about “sexy” Renaissance paintings, but there aren’t many that are more full of sex than this so-called Virgin with Child, St. John the Baptist, and Mary Magdalene. But I wonder how many hotblooded Renaissance viewers would have known it? The Getty must be right when it says the picture was intended for “private devotion.” Very private. [link]