Lucas Cranach the Elder

Born around 1472, Cranach spent most of his career as court painter to the Electors of Saxony, a position that gave him both security and proximity to power. He became a close friend of Martin Luther and threw himself into the Protestant cause, painting its leaders while searching for new visual language to express Lutheran concerns — a break from the Catholic tradition he'd worked in earlier. His workshop was large and prolific; works exist in multiple versions, many created by his son Lucas Cranach the Younger and others who kept replicating the elder's compositions for decades after his dea…