Lucas Cranach

As the leading member of a German family of artists, Lucas Cranach was a painter, printmaker and book illustrator with a distinctly individual manner and a highly successful business. He was one of the most versatile artists of the Renaissance, court artist to the Saxon electors, a staunch supporter of the Reformation, and a close friend of Martin Luther. During the course of his long career, Cranach created striking portraits and expressive devotional works, propaganda for the Protestant cause, as well as his own brand of erotic female nude and inventive treatments of biblical, mythological and classical subjects. The Städel has generously made available to the Academy its remarkable collection of paintings, drawings and prints by Cranach; foremost among the works it has lent is The Altarpiece of the Holy Kinship, dated 1509.