The painting the world knows as the Lady with an Ermine<\/strong> is the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani<\/strong>, and one of very few female portraits Leonardo ever made. It was painted while he was court painter to the Sforza in Milan \u2013 oil on a walnut panel, in the High Renaissance<\/strong> manner. It is held by the National Museum in Krak\u00f3w under inventory number MNK XII-209 and displayed at the Czartoryski Museum. The dark background you see today is not Leonardo\u2019s: by the museum\u2019s own account the original background was modelled with light, so that the figure emerged from semi-darkness, and it was repainted in the 19th century.<\/p>\n Cecilia Gallerani (c. 1473\u20131536) was a lady-in-waiting and the mistress of Ludovico Sforza<\/strong>, Duke of Milan. She was barely out of her teens when the portrait was made. Her identity was unknown for a long time \u2013 the museum notes it remained uncertain until around 1900. The picture is one of only four female portraits<\/strong> Leonardo painted in his entire life.<\/p>\n The animal in her arms is often called a weasel in older texts, but it is an ermine<\/strong> \u2013 and it is not there by accident. In 1488 Ludovico Sforza received the Order of the Ermine<\/strong> from the King of Naples, so the animal points first of all to the Duke. The ermine is at the same time an old emblem of purity. And third: the Greek word for the animal, gal\u00e9<\/em>, echoes the surname Gallerani, so Leonardo folded the duke, the virtue and a pun on the sitter\u2019s own name into a single creature.<\/p>\n Every hand-painted painting on canvas<\/strong> is made to order in our workshop and never printed. As canvas wall art<\/strong> or a painting on canvas<\/strong> it sits well in a living room, a bedroom or an office. If Leonardo\u2019s female portraits interest you, see the other two of the four: La Belle Ferronni\u00e8re<\/a> and Ginevra de\u2019 Benci<\/a>; the fourth is of course the Mona Lisa<\/a>.<\/p>\n Leonardo da Vinci \u2013 Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani The painting the world knows as the Lady with an Ermine is the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, and one of very few female portraits Leonardo ever made. It was painted while he was court painter to the Sforza in Milan \u2013 oil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":79012,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[9810],"product_tag":[9831,9870,9862,9863],"class_list":["post-81974","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-leonardo-da-vinci","product_tag-da-vinci-en","product_tag-painter","product_tag-reproduction-en","product_tag-reproductions","pa_dimenzija-120-x-160-cm","pa_dimenzija-150-x-200-cm","pa_dimenzija-40-x-55-cm","pa_dimenzija-50-x-70-cm","pa_dimenzija-60-x-80-cm","pa_dimenzija-70-x-95-cm","pa_dimenzija-80-x-110-cm","pa_dimenzija-90-x-120-cm","pa_oblika-vertical","pa_okvir-without-frame","pa_podokvir-without","pa_podokvir-yes","first","instock","purchasable","product-type-variable","has-default-attributes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho Cecilia Gallerani was<\/h3>\n
The ermine is not an ornament<\/h3>\n
Our hand-painted reproduction<\/h3>\n
\n