Leonardo da Vinci’s treasured painting ‘Lady with an Ermine’, a work belonging to Poland that was stolen by the Nazis, has gone on display in Germany for the first time since World War II. The 15th century portrait of a young woman holding a white ermine – otherwise known as a stoat or short-tailed weasel – has pride of place in a major exhibition of Renaissance art to open Thursday at Berlin’s Bode Museum. Along with the Mona Lisa, the work is one of just four paintings of women by the famed Italian Renaissance master. Stolen by Hitler’s troops during World War II, the masterpiece was later returned to Poland. The German press called the loan a gesture of “reconciliation” between Poland and Germany.
