Book Review: “What the Ermine Saw” by Eden Collinsworth

What the Ermine Saw by Eden Collinsworth

Sigh.  This is a great title.  Unfortunately, the book hardly lives up to the snappy title.

The book is intended to be a history of Leonardo’s famous and exquisite “Lady with an Ermine”, from creation in Italy through a long series of owners, ending in a museum in Krakow.  The painting has survived multiple wars, political upheavals, natural disasters, and time; so there is a story to tell.

However, most of the book is about the times and events, with little about the painting.  It was “lost from view” for more than 100 years, and even after resurfacing, it’s location and situation is poorly documented.   These “dark ages” are the subject of speculation, which Collinsworth waves her hands at, with minimal explanation.

Even for times when the painting is known, there isn’t all that much to tell.  I mean, it’s in storage, or on the wall.  So Collinsworth rattles on about European history, including the partition of Poland, wars, the Communist and post-Communist eras.  So, for instance, we are treated to a very sketchy history of Nazi looting.  Lady with an Ermine was indeed looted by the Nazis, but most of the material has nothing to do with her.

The result is a rambling, shambling collection of historical vignettes, loosely connected by tenuous ties to the Lady. 

A rambling, shambling collection of bad historical vignettes.  I noticed multiple errors, including inaccurate dates and completely false episodes.  Mainly there are also plenty of misleading phrases, compressing events many years apart into supposed juxtaposition.  If you are looking to understand the history of Europe, this book is not a good source.

These mistakes and distortions are all the more difficult to discern because of Collinsworth’s peculiar writing style.  Her grammar is correct, I guess, but convoluted and definitely not the way people talk where I live.  Time and again, I had to reread a sentence to try to grok what she was actually saying.  Inevitably, it was something simple, dressed up in weird passive voice and out of order phrases.

“[No foreign museum] received permission [for a touring loan], for the lingering unknown for the Polish state resided in international law.”

(p. 202). One example of obscure phrasing.

Sigh.

Love the painting.  Like the title.  Didn’t enjoy the book.

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1. Eden Collinsworth, What the Ermine Saw: The Extraordinay Journey of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Most Mysterious Portrait, New York, Doubleday, 2022.

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