(Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John,
oil on panel, 38 x 25 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 10 June 1998, lot 118;
Rhenish private collection;
sale, Lempertz, Cologne, 15 November 2003, lot 1030;
Private collection, Germany

The present painting is registered in the Cranach Digital Archive under CDA ID: PRIVATE_NONE-P311.

The present panel, depicting the Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist with a touching immediacy and meticulously drawn figures, is a refined example of the workshop output of Lucas Cranach the Elder. The dark background, better to contrast the delicate flesh tones, and the bold symphonies of colour show Cranach’s imbibing of Renaissance techniques brought north of the Alps by the likes of Albrecht Dürer, while the mastery of texture through the use of delicate impasto to suggest Mary’s veil and the rich oil glazes of the drapery are distinctively German.

The current panel was examined in the original by Gunnar Heydenreich in 2005, who suggested a date of execution between 1512 and 1516 in the Wittenberg workshop of Lucas Cranach I. Infrared reflectography revealed underdrawing which Heydenreich suggests was applied in black ink, probably with a brush, and this along with the pigments used and overall technique are entirely in keeping with Cranach’s workshop practice for repeating such sought-after compositions.

This workshop repetition appears to derive from the prototype that was formerly with Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York, 1946 (see M. J. Friedländer/J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, p. 77, no. 40). Another treatment of the subject (private collection) which was exhibited in Frankfurt (see Städel Museum, Cranach der Ältere, 23 November 2007 – 17 February 2008, no. 17).