Why Isabella d’Este Borrowed Lady with an Ermine

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Isabella d’Este has long been remembered as both one of the Renaissance’s most important art patrons and a greedy, controlling collector who cared more about possessing beautiful objects than supporting the artists who created them (San Juan, 1991). Those two reputations seem difficult to reconcile. Yet the contradiction may tell us as much about the historians who judged Isabella as it does about Isabella herself.

As Marchesa of Mantua, Isabella assembled an extraordinary collection of paintings, medals, gems, antiquities, and other precious objects. She commissioned leading artists, maintained an extensive correspondence about art, and created rooms called the studiolo and grotta to display her collection. However, her surviving letters also reveal a demanding patron who negotiated aggressively, issued detailed instructions, pursued objects relentlessly, and complained when artists failed to meet her expectations (San Juan, 1991).

For generations, historians used those letters to construct a portrait of Isabella as vain, difficult, and greedy. Art historian Rose Marie San Juan (1991) argues that this interpretation often reflects gendered assumptions. Male Renaissance collectors also competed for rare objects, directed artists, and used culture to display their power. Their ambition was generally treated as evidence of refinement or political intelligence. Isabella’s similar behavior was more likely to be interpreted as a flaw in her personality.

Isabella’s collecting was not simply an expensive hobby. As a woman in a Renaissance court, she had limited opportunities to exercise authority openly. Art provided another path. Her collection attracted important visitors, encouraged cultural discussions, and helped establish Mantua as a sophisticated court. Her letters about paintings and antiquities also connected her with artists, agents, rulers, and collectors across Italy. Through collecting, Isabella created a public identity as an educated patron whose judgment mattered.

One revealing example began in 1498, when Isabella asked Cecilia Gallerani to lend her a portrait painted by Leonardo da Vinci.  The social relationships behind that request were complicated. Cecilia had been the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the husband of Isabella’s younger sister, Beatrice d’Este. By 1498, Beatrice had died, and Cecilia had been married to Count Ludovico Carminati de’ Brambilla. Yet Isabella and Cecilia remained in contact. When Isabella wanted to examine Leonardo’s work, she sent a messenger to borrow the portrait now known as Lady with an Ermine (Brown, 1990).  In her letter, Isabella explained that she had recently seen portraits by Giovanni Bellini and wanted to compare them with Leonardo’s work. Cecilia sent the painting but warned that it no longer resembled her because Leonardo had painted her when she was much younger. The portrait was returned the following month. 

Not long afterward, Isabella received her own opportunity to sit for Leonardo. Following the French invasion of Milan in 1499, Leonardo traveled through Mantua and produced studies for a proposed portrait of the Marchesa. A large preparatory drawing now in the Louvre is generally identified as Isabella. Leonardo apparently promised to turn the design into a painting. Isabella waited, but received no response. Her agents continued asking Leonardo about the portrait, but the promised painting never arrived. By 1504, after approximately four years, Isabella wrote to him again. At that point, she was willing to abandon the portrait and suggested that Leonardo fulfill his promise by painting another subject instead (Brown, 1990).

It is easy to read these persistent requests as further proof that Isabella was demanding. But they can also be understood as the actions of a patron attempting to operate within the systems available to her. She could not travel freely through Italy, visit workshops whenever she pleased, or compete openly with powerful male collectors. She relied on letters, messengers, agents, family connections, and considerable persistence (San Juan, 1991).

Borrowing Lady with an Ermine was therefore about more than finding someone to paint her portrait. It shows Isabella evaluating an artist, using her social network, and making an informed decision about the image she wanted to present to the world. The incident captures both sides of her reputation: the relentless collector who refused to stop asking and the remarkable patron who understood that art could be a form of cultural and political power.

Further Reading

Brown, D. A. (1990). Leonardo and the ladies with the ermine and the book. Artibus et Historiae,

11(22), 47–61. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1483398 

San Juan, R. M. (1991). The court lady’s dilemma: Isabella d’Este and art collecting in the

Renaissance. Oxford Art Journal, 14(1), 67–78. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1360278