Boy with a Finger in His Mouth

Boy with a Finger in His Mouth is a c.1530 oil on panel painting by Parmigianino, now in a private collection.

It is first recorded in a 1612 inventory of Barbara Sanseverino's goods described as "[a painting] by Parmigianino showing a 'putta' with a finger in its mouth and a tola in brass".

It was later exhibited at the Palazzo del Giardino in Parma and was then mentioned in a 1680 inventory as "a head of a "puttino" with knotted hair holding a finger of its left hand in its mouth and with a canvas with an alphabet in its right hand, by Parmigianino" and in a 1785 inventory as a "sketch of a boy joking".

The work then passed to an art dealer and was published in 1930 by Frölich-Bum, at which time it was in the Frey collection in Paris.

Freedberg published it again in 1950, when it was in the Gouldstikker Gallery in Amsterdam.