Frederick III the Wise (1533)

Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553) & Workshop

Frederick III the Wise
1533
Oil on beech, 20.3 x 14.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew 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 FoundationPhiladelphia

 

 

Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553)
Portrait of Frederick the Wise
15301535
Private Collection

 

 

See also:

• Frederick III, Elector of Saxony (1463-1525)