Who Was Leonardo da Vinci 达·芬奇 Chapter 7 Leonardo’s Ladies

Not everything in Leonardo’s career ended in failure. Sometimes he actually finished a job. It is true that only ten completed paintings are known to be by Leonardo. That’s a tiny number. But each and every one is a treasure.



The story is that in 1505 a rich silk merchant wanted a portrait of his wife. He asked Leonardo to paint it. Leonardo had told friends that he had “grown weary of the paintbrush.” He meant that painting didn’t bring him much joy anymore. But perhaps he needed the money. Or perhaps the woman’s face caught his interest, especially her smile. Whatever the reason, Leonardo took the job. And he finished the painting although he worked on it for many years.



Nobody knows for sure what the woman’s name was. Her first name may have been Lisa. She may have been Lisa del Giocondo. In English, the painting is called the Mona Lisa.



In the portrait, only the top half of Mona Lisa’s body is shown. Behind her is a landscape. A winding 1 road leads back to craggy mountains that disappear in mist.



Mona Lisa’s black dress is very simple. And she does not wear fancy jewelry 2. A thin black veil covers her long curling hair. Then, as now, it was the custom for widows to wear black. So perhaps Mona Lisa was not the wife of a silk merchant. Perhaps she was someone else about whom we know nothing. It is one of the mysteries surrounding the painting.



Her hands are crossed and rest one on top of the other. They are very graceful 3 with soft, long fingers. Looking at them, it is easy to believe there is muscle and bone beneath the skin. It is possible to forget that her hands are just brushstrokes of paint on a flat surface.



But it is the expression on her face that draws people to her. Her lips are pressed together in a calm half-smile. She looks as if she is keeping a secret. Her eyes are full of mystery, too. They appear to look out at something only she can see.



The Mona Lisa is probably the most famous painting in the world. Why? No one can really answer that question. But Leonardo loved the painting, too. When he was finished, he decided 4 to keep it. In fact, he kept it with him, wherever he went, for the rest of his life.



Many people consider another portrait of a woman by Leonardo even more beautiful than the Mona Lisa. It is called Young Girl with Ermine. An ermine is a type of weasel. In winter, its coat turns white—just as it appears in the painting. Ermine hairs were used for paintbrushes. So it’s possible that Leonardo painted the ermine with an ermine brush!



Why is an ermine in the picture? It may be there as a play on words. The young girl’s name was Cecilia Gallerani. And gale 5 in Greek means “ermine.”



As in the Mona Lisa, only the top half of the young girl is painted. But there is no landscape behind her. She stands against a dark solid background. Neither she nor the animal looks directly at the viewer. Instead, her face is turned so that she is gazing off to the side. At what or at whom? No one knows. She wears richer clothes than the Mona Lisa’s. A long strand 6 of beads 7 is looped around her neck. Her dress is part blue, part red, with gold lining 8 and black trim. The fabric 9 looks as if it is made of velvet 10.



Mona Lisa is dreamy looking. The young lady here looks like she has a quick, sharp mind. You can see it in her alert eyes, the set of her mouth and chin. One hand holds the ermine closely against her shoulder. The ermine looks alert and intelligent, too. The girl’s hand is beautiful. It’s painted to perfection. But her thin fingers are tense. Mona Lisa’s fingers are plump and relaxed. Through the poses and the faces, Leonardo catches the soul of two very different women.



Young Girl with Ermine is not as famous as the Mona Lisa. It hangs in a museum in Kraków, Poland. The Mona Lisa is in the Louvre, a famous museum in Paris where crowds come every day to see her. Which painting is more beautiful? People lucky enough to see both must decide that for themselves.



Another Leonardo portrait of a young woman is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It is the only painting by Leonardo in the United States. Her name was Ginevra de’ Benci. It is even smaller than the Mona Lisa or Young Girl with Ermine. The bottom was cut off at some point, so now the painting shows only Ginevra’s head and chest. Her skin is almost ghostly pale. Her eyes seem sorrowful. It is very hard to “read” her expression. That is one of the reasons why people keep looking at the painting. Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci is haunting.