Lady with an Ermine in the context of "Juglans"

The Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was one of the founding figures of the High Renaissance, and exhibited enormous influence on subsequent artists. Only around eight major works—The Adoration of the Magi, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks, The Last Supper, the ceiling of the Sala delle Asse, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, and the Mona Lisa—are universally attributed to him, and have aroused little or no controversy in the past. Ten additional works are now widely attributed to his oeuvre, though most have previously incited considerable controversy or doubt: the Annunciation, Madonna of the Carnation, The Baptism of Christ (with his teacher, Verrocchio), Ginevra de' Benci, the Benois Madonna, the Portrait of a Musician (with possible studio assistance), the Lady with an Ermine, La Belle Ferronnière, the London Virgin of the Rocks (with studio assistance), the Portrait of Isabella d'Este, and Saint John the Baptist.

Other attributions are more complicated. La Scapigliata appears to be attributed by most scholars, but some prominent specialists are silent on the issue. Salvator Mundi's attribution remains extremely controversial, and the extensive nature of the restoration may never allow a definitive resolution. The small number of surviving paintings is due in part to Leonardo's habit of disastrous experimentation with new techniques and his chronic procrastination, resulting in many incomplete works. It is thought that he created many more works that are now lost, though records and copies have survived for some.

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness is an unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated c. 1480–1490. A recent study linked to the Lady with an Ermine carried out by Leonardo da Vinci at the same time supports this hypothesis. The composition of the painting has been drafted in monochrome onto the primed wooden panel. At an unknown date after Leonardo's death, the panel was cut into five pieces before eventually being restored into its original form (minus a very small triangle).

The Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in oils, and perhaps tempera, on a small panel of walnut wood. It is his only known male portrait painting, and the identity of its sitter has been closely debated among scholars.

Perhaps influenced by Antonello da Messina's introduction of the Early Netherlandish style of portrait painting to Italy, the work marks a dramatic shift from the profile portraiture that predominated in 15th-century Milan. It shares many similarities with other paintings Leonardo executed there, such as the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks and the Lady with an Ermine, but the Portrait of a Musician is his only panel painting remaining in the city, where it has been in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana since at least 1672. One of Leonardo's best preserved paintings, there are no extant contemporary records of the commission. Based on stylistic resemblances to other works by Leonardo, virtually all current scholarship attributes at least the sitter's face to him. Uncertainty over the rest of the painting arises from the stiff and rigid qualities of the body, which are uncharacteristic of Leonardo's work. While this may be explained by the painting's unfinished state, some scholars believe that Leonardo was assisted by one of his students.

La Belle Ferronnière (French pronunciation: [la bɛl fɛʁɔnjɛʁ]) is a portrait painting of a lady, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre. It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger (a ferronnier), was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. Later she was tentatively identified as Lucretia Crivelli, a married lady-in-waiting to Duchess Beatrice of Milan, who became another of the Duke's mistresses.

Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine has also been known by this name. This was once believed to be a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, one of the mistresses of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The narrative and the title were applied to Lady with an Ermine when it was in Princess Izabela Czartoryska's collection, and became confused with La Belle Ferronnière by the presence of a ferronnière, a type of accessory worn across the forehead, in the painting as well.

Cecilia Gallerani (Italian pronunciation: [tʃeˈtʃiːlja ɡalleˈraːni]; early 1473 – 1536) was the favourite and most celebrated of the many mistresses of Ludovico Sforza, known as Lodovico Il Moro, Duke of Milan. She is best known as the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489). While posing for the painting, she invited Leonardo, who at the time was working as court artist for Sforza, to meetings at which Milanese intellectuals discussed philosophy and other subjects. Gallerani herself presided over these discussions.