Joy Cowley is a New Zealand author of both children's and adult fiction. A couple of her many titles are Nest in a Fallen Tree and The Silent One. See the Wikipedia article on her for more details.
The summary is a man goes out on an expedition to kill a man eating lion, but while he is hunting he is attacked by a mother lioness (who is not the man eater) and finds 3 female cubs. He brings them...
The book was written in Vienna in the 1500s by Georg Bocskay.
You can take a peek at this site for more details: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=1756