Lady with an Ermine
painting by Leonardo da Vinci from around 1489–1490
The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to c. 1489–1491, the work is painted in oils on a panel of walnut wood. Its subject is Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza ("Il Moro"), Duke of Milan; Leonardo was painter to the Sforza court in Milan at the time of its execution. It is the second of only four surviving portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being Ginevra de' Benci, La Belle Ferronnière and the Mona Lisa.
Lady with an Ermine is now in the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, and is considered one of Poland's national treasures.
Description
Composition
The painting was executed in oils on a relatively small, 54.8 cm × 40.3 cm (21.6 in × 15.9 in) walnut wood panel. It depicts a half-height woman turned toward her right at a three-quarter angle, but with her face turned toward her left. The animal in her arms twists in a similar manner, resulting in considerable contrapposto with the lady, a technique Leonardo explored earlier with the angel in the Virgin of the Rocks. The work is prepared with a layer of white gesso and a layer of brownish underpaint. In general, the paint is evenly applied akin to the Mona Lisa, though certain areas of the lady's skin are more layered.
“Lady with an Ermine” enters the record as painting by Leonardo da Vinci from around 1489–1490. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lady, Ermine and painting can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Lady with an Ermine” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lady, Ermine and painting provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q474338. VIAF identifies the subject as 182378356. The Library of Congress control number is n98075497. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1489 and 1491.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Lady with an Ermine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.