What the Ermine Saw:
The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait

by Eden Collinsworth

From the NYT review: "Eden Collinsworth’s fourth book ... traces the tumultuous history of Leonardo’s painting, from Sforza’s Renaissance court to Enlightenment-era Poland to the portrait’s theft by Nazi looters during the Second World War."

From the Publishers Weekly: "Tracking the painting across five centuries, Collinsworth reveals that the portrait’s subject was most likely Cecelia Gallerani, the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan."

From the NYT review: "Gallerani was not only a beauty but also a talented poet, scholar and composer, a true Renaissance woman who beguiled the fierce Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The ermine — added by Leonardo in the second of three stages of this painting — is an allusion to Sforza, who was nicknamed “White Ermine”; it rests tame but potent in Gallerani’s hands, strangely erotic for a weasel" .... “Lady With an Ermine” disappeared for more than two centuries after Gallerani’s death, only to re-emerge around 1800, when the Polish Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski purchased it on a tour of Napoleonic Italy; he gave the portrait to his mother, Princess Izabela Dorota Czartoryska."

From the Kirkus Review: "Collinsworth meticulously charts the painting’s circuitous path throughout Europe during political unrest and two world wars to a German governor-general who was busy creating “a systematic campaign to eradicate Polish culture.” Finally transferred to the National Museum in Kraków, the painting has since been exhibited around the world."

VISIT THE PHC BOOK PAGE
for more information about the book
and books discussed in previous meetings

To register and for more information, please sent an e-mail to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.