Lady with an Ermine

The Lady with an Ermine was made with oils on a small 54 × 39 cm (21 × 15 in) walnut wood panel.[5] Oil paint was relatively new to Italy at the time, having been introduced in the 1470s, and walnut wood was a wood favored by Leonardo,[6] but mostly unused by other Lombard artists at the time.[7] The wood is thin and about 4–5 millimetres (0.16–0.20 in) thick, prepared with a layer of white gesso and a layer of brownish underpaint.[8] Art historian Frank Zöllner says that the wood used for The Lady with the Ermine may be from the same tree as the wood used for his later portrait, La Belle Ferronnière.[9] The painting shows a half-height figure, the body of a woman turned at a three-quarter angle toward her right, but with her face turned toward her left.[10]

The subject has been identified with reasonable certainty as Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo's employer, Ludovico Sforza.[11] Her gaze is directed neither straight ahead, nor toward the viewer, but toward a "third party" beyond the picture's frame. Gallerani holds a small white-coated stoat, known as an ermine. Her dress is comparatively simple, revealing that she is not a noblewoman. Her coiffure, known as a coazone, confines her hair smoothly to her head with two bands of it bound on either side of her face and a long plait at the back. Her hair is held in place by a fine gauze veil with a woven border of gold-wound threads, a black band, and a sheath over the plait.[12]

As in many of Leonardo's paintings, the composition comprises a pyramidic spiral and the sitter is caught in the motion of turning to her left, reflecting Leonardo's lifelong preoccupation with the dynamics of movement. The three-quarter profile portrait was one of his many innovations. Il Moro's court poet, Bernardo Bellincioni, was the first to propose that Cecilia was poised as if listening to an unseen speaker.

This work in particular shows Leonardo's expertise in painting the human form. Cecelia's outstretched hand was painted in great detail, with every contour of each fingernail, each wrinkle around his knuckles, and even the flexing of the tendon in her bent finger.

The Ermine Hunt, c. 1490 pen and ink drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

The animal resting in Cecilia's arms is usually known as an ermine. Commentators have noted it as too large to be an actual ermine,[13] but its size is explained by it being of a largely symbolic nature.[14] Art historian Luke Syson notes that "Naturalism is not the point here; Leonardo has created a mythical beast, the composite of several animals he drew at this time."[15] There are several interpretations of the ermine's significance and they are often used in combination with each other.[13][16][17] In its winter coat, the ermine was a traditional symbol of purity and moderation,[15] as it was believed it would face death rather than soil its white coat.[17] In his old age, Leonardo compiled a bestiary in which he recorded: "The ermine out of moderation never eats but once a day, and it would rather let itself be captured by hunters than take refuge in a dirty lair, in order not to stain its purity."[18] He repeats this idea in another note, "Moderation curbs all the vices. The ermine prefers to die rather than soil itself."[19] Leonardo also drew a c. 1490 pen and ink drawing, housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, depicting an ermine representative of these ideals by surrendering to a hunter.[5] The ermine has also been noted to have a personal significance to Ludovico Sforza, as he would use it as a personal emblem after joining the Order of the Ermine (Naples) in 1488.[17] Alternatively, the ermine could be a pun on Cecilia's surname: The Ancient Greek term for ermine, or other weasel-like species of animals, is galê (γαλῆ) or galéē (γαλέη).[16] Such allusions were particularly popular in Renaissance culture;[13] Leonardo himself had done something similar in his earlier work, Ginevra de' Benci, when he surrounded Ginevra with a juniper tree or ginepro in Italian.[20] Differently, Krystyna Moczulska suggests that the ermine follows the meaning of an ermine or weasel in classical literature, where it relates to pregnancy, sometimes as an animal that protected pregnant women. Around the time of the painting's creation, Cecilia was known to be pregnant with Ludovico's illegitimate son.[9]

The sitter has been identified with reasonable certainty as Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo's employer, Ludovico Sforza.[21]

Gallerani was a member of a large family that was neither wealthy nor noble. Her father served for a time at the Duke's court. At the time of the portrait, she was about 16 years old and was renowned for her beauty, scholarship and poetry. She was married at approximately age six to a young nobleman of the house of Visconti, but sued to annul the marriage in 1487 for undisclosed reasons and the request was granted. She became the Duke's mistress and bore him a son, even after his marriage to Beatrice d'Este 11 years previously.[22] Beatrice was promised to the Duke when she was only 5, and married him when she was 16 in 1491. After a few months, she discovered the Duke was still seeing Gallerani, and forced the Duke to end the relationship by having her married to a local count named Bergamino.

The painting was acquired in Italy in 1798 by Prince Adam George Czartoryski, the son of Izabela Czartoryska Flemming and Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, and incorporated into the Czartoryski family collections at Puławy in 1800. The inscription on the top-left corner of the painting, LA BELE FERONIERE. LEONARD DAWINCI., was probably added by a restorer shortly after its arrival in Poland,[23] and before the background was overpainted.[24] Czartoryski was clearly aware it was a Leonardo, although the painting had never been discussed in print; no record exists of any previous owner. The Belle Ferronière is the Leonardo portrait in the Louvre, whose sitter bears such a close resemblance, the Czartoryskis considered this sitter to be the same.

The painting travelled extensively during the 19th century. During the November Uprising in 1830, the 84-year-old Princess Czartoryska rescued it in advance of the invading Russian army, hid it, and sent it 100 miles south to the Czartoryski palace at Sieniawa.[25] Soon after, it was transferred to the Czartoryski place of exile in Paris, the Hôtel Lambert. The family returned to Poland in 1869, settling in Kraków. In the tumultuous aftermath of the German occupation of Paris in 1871 and the Commune, the family brought the painting to Kraków in 1876[25] and the museum opened in 1878. During World War I, the painting was moved to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister[26] in Dresden for safe-keeping,[27] returning to Kraków in 1920.

In 1939, anticipating the German occupation of Poland, it was again moved to Sieniawa,[25] but it was discovered and seized by the Nazis and sent to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. In 1940, Hans Frank, the Governor General of Poland, saw the painting there and requested it be returned to Kraków, where it hung in his suite of offices in the Wawel Castle. In 1941, it was transferred to a warehouse of other plundered art in Breslau. In 1943 it was brought back to Kraków and exhibited at the Wawel Castle.[25] At the end of the Second World War it was discovered by Allied troops in Frank's country home in Schliersee, Bavaria and was returned to Poland in 1946. It was again placed on exhibit at the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, where it remained until the museum closed for renovations in 2010. From May 2017-2019, it was exhibited in the National Museum, Kraków, just outside the Old Town. It returned to the Czartoryski Museum for its reopening on December 19, 2019.[28]