Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the great figures of the Renaissance. Roughly spanning the 14th through 16th centuries, the Renaissance was a time of widespread scientific and cultural development.
Leonardo was born in Vinci, a Tuscan village. When he was in his early teens, Leonardo’s family moved to Florence and he became an apprentice to an artist named Verrocchio. Leonardo later moved to Milan, but he returned to Florence around the time he completed Lady With an Ermine. His wide range of interests included engineering, science, mathematics, and studies of the natural world.
Lady With an Ermine is one of only four known portraits of women by Leonardo. Most historians believe that it depicts Cecilia Gallerani. A teenager at the time of this painting, she was celebrated for her intelligence and beauty.
Leonardo’s portrait suggests the subject’s personality through her expression and individualized features. He incorporates objects of personal significance. She holds a pet ermine, a type of weasel found in northern parts of Europe. Royal families adorned their clothing with the animals’ valuable white coats, which symbolized moral purity. The ermine may also refer to Cecilia’s surname because the ancient Greek word for weasel is galee.
Cecilia wears expensive fabrics embroidered with gold thread, a necklace made of rich black jet stones, and a veil headdress made of fine gauze. Leonardo envelops her in a blue mantle, using lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone from Afghanistan, to make the ultramarine blue pigment.
Leonardo uses innovations like the three-quarter-length portrait (which includes much of the subject’s body) and the threequarter view (in which the subject looks diagonally) to enliven his portrait. He shows Cecilia turning as if looking behind the viewer.
The artist uses lines to energize the triangular composition, which would ordinarily be static. The lines fluidly draw the eye from the figure’s face, down her shoulder to the ermine, then along her hand in a dynamic movement.
Leonardo rendered this painting on a wood panel with white gesso and brown underpaint. He carefully blends the fine brushstrokes, smoothing away visible strokes. He uses oil paint, a relatively new medium at the time. Oil paint allows greater luminosity and detail than tempera paint, the previous standard. This versatile medium allows the artist to render details, such as the fine hairs on the ermine and Cecilia’s delicate fingernails.
Leonardo believed that sculptural volume was the most important part of creating the illusion of reality in paintings. He models Cecilia’s skin with shadows following the contours of her skin. The shadows are known as sfumato, or smokiness.