CRANACH, Lucas the Elder
(b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar)

Martin Luther

c. 1532
Oil on beech panel, 33 x 23 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This is one of the many printed and painted portraits of Martin Luther (1483-1546) that were produced by Cranach and his workshop beginning about 1520. The reformer and the artist were well acquainted, for Cranach served as Luther's matchmaker when he was courting Katharina von Bora, who lived in Cranach's house in Wittenberg from 1523 until her marriage to Luther in 1525. Luther also served as the godfather of Cranach's first daughter, born in 1520.




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