Lady with an Ermine
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| Lady with an Ermine |
| Leonardo da Vinci, 1485 |
| Oil on wood panel |
| 54 × 39 cm |
| Czartoryski Museum, Kraków |
Lady with an Ermine is a 1485 painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Its subject is Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The painting is one of only four female portraits Leonardo painted (the other three being the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Ginevra de' Benci and La Belle Ferronière). Despite sustaining much damage – a door in the background was overpainted, a transparent veil on the model's head was turned into an extravagant hairdo and several fingers were grossly retouched – it is nonetheless in better condition than many of Leonardo's other paintings.
Leonardo met Cecilia Gallerani in Milan in 1484 while both were living in Castello Sforzesco, the Palace of Duke Lodovico Sforza, best known as Ludovico Il Moro. She was the Duke's mistress; young and beautiful (she was only 17 years old), Cecilia played music and wrote poetry. Several interpretations of the significance of the ermine in her portrait are possible. It has been read as a symbol of purity or of Il Moro, whose emblem was a little ermine. Alternatively, it could be a pun on her name (the Greek for ermine is galay). Strictly speaking, the animal in the painting appears to be not an ermine but a white ferret, a type favoured in the Middle Ages because of the ease of seeing the white animal in thick undergrowth.
As in many of Leonardo's portraits, the composition comprises a pyramidic spiral and the sitter is caught in the motion of turning to her left, reflecting Leonardo's life-long preoccupation with the dynamics of movement. Il Moro's court poet, Bernando Bellincioli, was the first to propose that Cecilia is poised as if listening to an unseen speaker.
The painting was acquired by Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the son of Izabela Czartoryska and Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski in Italy in 1798 and incorporated into The Czartoryskis’ family collections in 1800. The inscription on the top-left hand corner of the painting, LA BELE FERIONIERE. LEONARD D'AWINCI., was probably added by a restorer shortly after its arrival in Poland. [1] Almost immediately after the German occupation of Poland in 1939 it was seized by the Nazis and sent to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. In 1940 Hans Frank, the Governor General of Poland, requested that it be returned to Kraków, where it hung in his suite of offices. At the end of the Second World War it was discovered by Allied troops in Frank's country home in Bavaria. It has since returned to Poland and is currently on display at the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków.
Leonardo's painting is the inspiration for the parody Woman Holding Ferret by Leonard of Quirm in the Discworld series of books. The painting is also depicted on the cover of Enigma 2005 box set, 15 Years After. The polish-made movie Vinci from 2004 revolves around a theft of the painting.
