Lady with an Ermine : Leonardo da Vinci
Courtesy of Czartoryski Foundation at the National Museum in Kracow
“Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine was returned to the Czartoryski Collection after the war by Polish Monuments officer Major Karol Estreicher, MFAA officer Lt. Frank P. Albright and two unidentified American GIs. This photo was taken upon their arrival at the Cracow Main Railway Station.”
Lady with an Ermine
Widely presumed to be a portrait of the Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza’s mistress, Cecilia Gallerani, this painting had been in the collection of the noble Czartoryski family of Poland for several generations. During World War I, it was deposited in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie and returned to the family inCracow in 1920. At the onset of World War II, the family hid their collection at their country estate in Sienewa, outside Cracow, but it was found and confiscated by the Nazis in September 1939. During the war the painting was known to have traveled at least twice to Berlin at Hermann Göring’s request, being returned both times to Governor-General Hans Frank in Cracow.
After the war it was found among an art cache at Frank’s house upon his arrest. It was one of the first paintings taken to the Munich Central Collecting Point. There it was easily identified as the Czartoryski Leonardo, photographed, and ultimately restituted. The Lady with an Ermine was among many Polish treasures, including the Veit Stoss altar, which departed from Germany for the return home in late April 1946. It was escorted by the distinguished Polish Monuments officer, Karol Estreicher, who draped Polish and American flags from the rail car. They were met in Cracow by crowds of people and officials, ceremoniously welcoming home their country’s cultural treasures.