{"id":30119,"date":"2017-11-24T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=30119"},"modified":"2017-11-23T20:20:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T01:20:55","slug":"a-new-cranach-painting-has-also-been-authenticated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/11\/a-new-cranach-painting-has-also-been-authenticated\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Cranach Painting Has Also Been Authenticated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Portrait-of-a-Lady-and-her-Son-by-Lucas-Cranach-the-Elder\"<\/a>
\n<\/a>Leonardo da Vinci is not the only Renaissance artist to have a new work added to his canon.\u00a0 So has Lucas Cranach, Luther\u2019s good friend and the patron of this blog!<\/p>\n

A painting entitled \u201cPortrait of a Lady and Her Son\u201d has just been attributed to Cranach.\u00a0 As with the Leonardo \u201cSavior of the World,\u201d it existed in numerous copies.\u00a0 Queen Victoria gave this particular painting as a gift to her husband, Prince Albert, who hailed from Germany and was a fan of the great Reformation artist.\u00a0 The Queen believed this to be an authentic Cranach and, as usual, she was right.<\/p>\n

\n

Experts studied this painting, which is still held by the British Royal Family, applying infrared reflectography, x-rays, and analysis of the pigment analysis.\u00a0 A key bit of evidence was the discovery that the fibrous material used to strengthen the panel on which the work was painted was pigeon tendon, which Cranach was known to have used.\u00a0 The\u00a0high-tech analysis, which included DNA testing of the pigeon tendons, showed that this painting was made of the same material as other works known to be by Cranach.<\/p>\n

The painting, dated 1510-1540, shows an unnamed \u201cElectress\u201d in an elaborate costume holding the hand of her little boy.\u00a0 An \u201celectress\u201d would be the wife of an Elector, one of the\u00a0seven nobles who had the privilege of voting for the Holy Roman Emperor, an elected position.\u00a0 The most famous of these, with particular associations with Cranach, is Frederick the Wise, Duke of Saxony.\u00a0 But Frederick died unmarried, so, going by the dates, this lady\u2019s husband is probably his brother and successor, John the Steadfast.\u00a0 The lady could be Sophie of Mecklenberg<\/a>, with the boy the future John the Magnanimous, but she died in 1503, before her husband took office.\u00a0 So it is more likely John the Steadfast\u2019s second wife, Margaret of Anhalt-Kothen.\u00a0<\/a>The boy would thus grow up to be John Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg.\u00a0 That would be appropriate, since Prince Albert was Duke of Saxe-Coburg,\u00a0which means that members of the Windsor dynasty, including Queen Elizabeth II, are\u00a0descended from the Saxon Dukes who protected Luther and Lutheranism.<\/p>\n

For a time, art critics dismissed any attribution to Cranach because, they said, his figures tend to be highly stylized, and the tenderness of the way the mother holds her son\u2019s hand would not be characteristic.\u00a0 First of all, his figures are not all highly stylized, though this rather stiff depiction of the lady could be described that way.\u00a0 But there is much that is \u201ctender\u201d in Cranach\u2019s works.<\/p>\n

And he is especially good at painting children.\u00a0 The mother here may be stylized, but her son looks like a little boy.\u00a0 Not a miniature adult, as in many other portraits of children of the day, but a realistic child looking around outside the formal pose, like an uncooperative subject at an Olen-Mills photo shoot.<\/p>\n

Compare this boy with the multitude of children in Cranach\u2019s painting of Christ blessing the children:<\/p>\n

\"1024px-Lucas_Cranach_the_Elder_Christ_blessing_the_Children,_Frankfurt_am_Main,_St\u00e4del_Museum<\/a><\/p>\n

See\u00a0The History Blog \u00bb Blog Archive \u00bb Cranach painting in Royal Collection authenticated by pigeon tendon<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and Hannah Furness, How pigeon tendons helped prove Queen Victoria\u2019s painting is real Old Master.<\/a><\/p>\n

Painting credits:\u00a0 Lucas Cranach the Elder [Public domain]<\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

HT:\u00a0 Paul McCain<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leonardo da Vinci is not the only Renaissance artist to have a new work added to his canon.\u00a0 So has Lucas Cranach, Luther\u2019s good friend and the patron of this blog! A painting entitled \u201cPortrait of a Lady and Her Son\u201d has just been attributed to Cranach.\u00a0 As with the Leonardo \u201cSavior of the World,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":30193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20,38],"tags":[5929,1329,5928],"class_list":["post-30119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-history","category-reformation","tag-art-scholarship","tag-lucas-cranach","tag-portrait-of-a-lady-and-her-son"],"yoast_head":"\nA New Cranach Painting Has Also Been Authenticated<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Leonardo da Vinci is not the only Renaissance artist to have had one of his works newly discovered. 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