Leonardo da Vinci, Italian
Lady With a Cat Lady With an Ermine (Due To Cat Allergy), ca. 1490
Oil and tempera on panel
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MASTERPIECE #3249
Info about this artist is pointed to by links in my comment at another blog entry.
/// The Lady is posed with an Ermine.
That’s a weasel, (which truly are vermin).
But the beast’s oversized
so it’s been analyzed
to learn secrets we need to determine.
/// Called Cecilia, the girl is sixteen.
With her lover, she cannot be seen.
He’s a much older man,
who’s the Duke of Milan,
and to marry another he’s keen.
/// With the Duke, young Cecilia would frolic.
They would make love in places bucolic.
“The White Ermine,” some claim
was her lover’s nickname,
so the creature she hugs is symbolic.
/// Leonardo first painted a stoat,
with a grayish-brown (not a white) coat.
He repainted it bigger,
white, with muscular figure,
in an effort to please the “old goat.”
/// Her outfit’s of velvet and lace; it
would be ruined should stoat crap deface it.
But she need not “dress down.”
She has wealth and renown
from the Duke, who would gladly replace it.
/// As she cuddled a creature that’s wild,
she looked off to the left and half-smiled.
Back then, weasels in art
symbolized a life’s start.
It implied— which was true— she’s “with child.”
/// Though Cecilia’s too “low class” to marry,
the Duke hadn’t hoped she would miscarry.
Found a Count she could wed,
(but still took her to bed),
and made time with his mistress to tarry.
/// The Duke, Sforza, may well have been jaded,
but their son, Cesare, he long aided
with financial support
and connections at court.
From an abbot to canon upgraded.