Lady with an Ermine

The sitter, Cecilia Gallerani, was seventeen and the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. Sforza's personal emblem was the ermine; he held the chivalric title L'Ermellino, the Ermine. Leonardo's ermine in her arms is a coded portrait of him in animal form. Medieval bestiaries also claimed an ermine would rather be captured than dirty its white fur. Cecilia was pregnant with Sforza's son at the time of the sitting. Now at Czartoryski Museum, Kraków @muzeumksiazatczartoryskich