Lady with an Ermine

The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painting widely attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to , 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 housed at the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, and is one of Poland's national treasures. It is part of the Princes Czartoryski Collection, which was sold for €100 million (5% of the estimated market value of the entire collection) on 29 December 2016 to the Polish government by Princes Czartoryski Foundation, represented by Adam Karol Czartoryski, the last direct descendant of Izabela Czartoryska Flemming and Adam George Czartoryski, who brought the painting to Poland from Italy in 1798. Description Composition