She turns before she arrives. The whole portrait is built on that single motion, a face swung over one shoulder to meet a gaze that was never meant to stay still, caught here as a field of fine scratches holding the only light in the work. This is after Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, painted around 1489 and now held in the Czartoryski Museum, part of the National Museum in Kraków. The sitter is generally identified as Cecilia Gallerani, a young woman at the court of Milan. What survives here is that turn entire: the long tilt of the neck, the level, unhurried eyes, the slender hand resting along the ermine's neck as if calming it and holding it still at once. The animal keeps its own alertness, ears up, body coiled, the one presence in the work that seems unaware it is being watched. What is given up is everything Leonardo painted around that gesture: the warm red of her sleeve, the soft modeling of flesh in oil, the plain dark backdrop behind her. All of it surrenders to one black field, so that only the woman, her hand and the animal she holds remain as light. No paint. No print. No ink. The image is scratched into the surface of the acrylic glass, built from a field of individual marks that hold the eye the way the original held its own, through presence rather than detail. It is there in every light, not only the light meant for it. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it, so the contrast deepens and the portrait reads differently depending on where you stand, never losing its shape. An Ermine Kept in Light belongs to After the Masters, a series within Art with Scratch by Tijs Dragtsma in which imagery is constructed through controlled surface damage rather than pigment or print, and in which that same damage becomes a way of asking how little of a masterpiece is needed before the eye knows it, and what shows itself once the colour is taken away. This is not a copy of Leonardo's painting and nothing from his hand, only a new reading of it made for this one surface, close enough to be known at a glance and strange enough to be looked at twice. From across a room the face holds together as a single, settled presence. Move closer and it opens into the marks themselves, each one part of the same quiet labour that made the glance, the hand and the animal's stare. "A visual language where damage is not destruction, but structure." About Art with Scratch Art with Scratch is a body of work in which the image is not drawn, but released. Carved line by line into a deep black surface, each work emerges through countless precise scratches that catch the light and bring form out of darkness. From a distance, the image appears almost photographic. Powerful, recognisable and full of presence. Yet up close, the work dissolves into a dense field of individual marks. Fine, fragile and almost weightless. What seemed solid reveals itself as a delicate web of lines, each one a deliberate gesture, each one essential to the whole. Light does not create the image. It sharpens it. The black surface absorbs, while the scratched lines reflect. As light shifts across the surface, the image breathes. From one angle the figure stands clear and defined. From another it softens and settles back toward the darkness from which it came, without ever disappearing. Under a focused spotlight, the contrast deepens and the image takes on a sculptural, almost luminous quality. What makes this medium so compelling is its quiet tension. The act of scratching is direct and irreversible. Every line is a decision that cannot be undone. Yet the result is not harsh. It is intimate, atmospheric and alive with movement. Hardness becomes softness. Destruction becomes creation. Absence becomes presence. In works such as this portrait, the figure is never fully fixed. Through the interplay of line, light and shadow, the image shifts with perspective and atmosphere. At certain moments, the subject seems to step forward out of the black. At others, it settles back into stillness. It is within that movement, between sharpness and calm, that the work comes alive. Like all materials touched by time, the surface carries its own quiet life. Each scratch holds a moment, a breath, a gesture. Together they form not just an image, but a presence, one that continues to reveal itself with every change of light. About the Artist My name is Tijs Dragtsma, founder of TD Fine Art Studio. As an artist, I am driven by a constant desire to explore new visual languages. I do not see art as a fixed style, but as an evolving field of discovery where material, structure, light and emotion come together. My work often begins with a simple question. How can a material speak in a new way. How can hardness become intimacy. How can precision create emotion. That search lies at the heart of everything I create. Within TD Fine Art Studio, each body of work is approached as its own world, with its own logic, atmosphere and visual identity. Some works are built through rhythm, repetition and structure. Others emerge through absence, shadow, reflection or tension. What connects them is a shared commitment to originality, clarity and emotional presence. I am fascinated by contrast. Between strength and fragility. Between control and feeling. Between what is visible and what is left open to interpretation. My goal is not simply to make an image, but to create a work that holds attention, invites reflection and continues to reveal itself over time. TD Fine Art Studio is the space in which these explorations come together. It is not only a studio, but an evolving artistic universe shaped by curiosity, precision and the ambition to create work that feels distinctive, intentional and alive. This listing contains AI-generated visualisations. Please refer to the original photographs to assess the actual condition of the object.