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I couldn't dig up much on this one — no name for her, nothing about why it was painted. If anyone knows, I'd take the story.

Apparently this was painted after he was already dead — he was stabbed at Mass in 1478 as part of a plot against his family, and pictures like this got made afterward so people had something to remember him by.

According to Wikipedia he spent the rest of his life painting heads — hundreds of them, getting simpler and simpler until they were barely faces at all. This one's from near the start of all that.

This one's apparently a quick gift sketch for a friend, painted during a stay on Capri - the model was well known locally and sat for plenty of other visiting painters too.

Apparently the ermine isn't just a pet — it was Duke Ludovico Sforza's personal emblem, and its Greek name is close enough to Cecilia Gallerani's own surname that people read it as a pun on both of them.

He barely sold a thing while he was alive and died broke at thirty-five — and now these same faces go for fortunes. I can't find what changed, except that he did.