Ferreting out a true ermine

IN Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, a young woman holds a long, skinny animal in her arms. An ermine is a stoat in its white winter coat. Irish stoats don’t turn white but mainland European ones do.

This, the most famous painting in Poland, can be seen at the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, where it has a room all to itself, apart from an empty frame hanging on the opposite wall. The frame once held a self-portrait by Raphael that was looted by the Nazis, carried off to Germany, and never seen again. Placing the da Vinci close to the frame evokes a sombre feeling. It’s an inspired piece of picture hanging.

Cecilia Gallerani was about 17 when she sat for da Vinci. ‘Galay’, the Greek for ermine, may be a pun on her name. The mistress of Ludovico Szforza, da Vinci’s patron, she had borne him a son. Szforza’s adopted emblem was the ermine, a symbol of aristocratic pride and steadfast virtue. This animal, it was said, would rather die than have its beautiful white coat soiled. A drawing by da Vinci in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge celebrates the legend; it shows a hunter killing a stoat. The inference is clear; Gallerani holds the great, and noble, Szforza captive in her arms.