Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553) & Workshop
Frederick III the Wise
1533
Oil on beech, 20.3 x 14.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
These posthumous portraits of the Saxon electors Friedrich III, the Wise, and Johann I, the Constant belong to a series of sixty such portrait pairs, ordered by Johann I’s son and successor, Johann Friedrich I, the Magnanimous, when he became elector in 1532. He intended the portraits of his father and uncle to serve as instruments of propaganda. The accompanying laudatory poems emphasize the passage of Saxon electoral preeminence from Friedrich to Johann, thereby implying the legitimacy of Johann Friedrich’s own electorate. Completed in 1533, the extensive series demonstrates the speed and efficiency of which the Cranach workshop was capable. (MET)
Compare:
Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553)
Portrait of Frederick the Wise
c.1525
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553)
Portrait of Frederick the Wise
1530–1535
Private Collection
See also:
• Frederick III, Elector of Saxony (1463-1525)