Lady With An Ermine - Conservation

Conservation

The Lady with an Ermine has been subject to two detailed laboratory examinations. The first was in the Warsaw Laboratories, the findings being published by K. Kwiatkowski in 1955. In 1992, the painting underwent examination and restoration in the Washington National Gallery Laboratories under the supervision of David Bull.

The painting is in oil on a thin walnut wood panel, about 4 to 5 mm thick, prepared with a layer of white gesso and a layer of brownish underpaint. The panel is in good condition apart from a break to the upper left side of the picture. Its size has never been altered, as indicated by a narrow unpainted strip on all four sides of the painting. The background was thinly overpainted with unmodulated black, probably between 1830 and 1870, when the damaged corner was restored. Eugène Delacroix was suggested to have painted the background. Its previous colour was a bluish grey. The signature "LEONARD DA VINCI" in the upper left corner was not there originally.

X-ray and microscopic analysis have revealed the charcoal-pounced outline of the pricked preparatory drawing on the prepared undersurface, a technique Leonardo learned in the studio of Verrocchio.

The painted surface reveals, apart from the black of the background and some abrasion caused by cleaning, the painting is almost entirely by the master's hand. There has been some slight retouching of her features in red, and the edge of the veil in ochre. Some scholars believe there was also some later retouching of the hands. Leonardo's fingerprints have been found in the surface of the paint, indicating he used his fingers to blend his delicate brushstrokes. Kwiatkowski observed that Leonardo had used his left hand to paint the coat of the ermine.