Lucas Cranach the Younger

Lucas Cranach the Younger was born on 4 October 1515 into the most successful painting enterprise in Reformation Germany. His father, Lucas Cranach the Elder, ran a factory-scale atelier in Wittenberg; his brother Hans worked there too. The younger Cranach trained in the family manner—those pale nudes, those sharp-eyed Protestant reformers—and when his father died he took over the business. He spent forty years painting portraits and altarpieces in a house style so consistent that the signature often mattered more than the hand. He died on 25 January 1586, having kept the Cranach brand alive l…