Bronzino

Agnolo di Cosimo, called Bronzino, was the son of a Florentine butcher and trained under Pontormo, who is thought to have painted him as a boy in one of his Joseph panels. From his late thirties he was court painter to Cosimo I de' Medici, producing cool, polished portraits of sitters who give nothing away. His Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time is a knot of eroticism and learned allegory. He also wrote poetry, both serious and comic.