High Renaissance · c. 1490
Leonardo da Vinci 1452–1519
Czartoryski Museum · Kraków
Cecilia Gallerani turns, cradling a white ermine, caught mid-movement — Leonardo's revolution in the living portrait.
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Chapter 1 of 7
She turns — and you feel it, that quick, living rotation as if someone just entered the room. Leonardo da Vinci painted this around 1490 in Milan, when he was working for Ludovico Sforza. The sitter is Cecilia Gallerani, Ludovico's young mistress, and this is one of the earliest European portraits to capture a body caught in genuine movement.
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