Lucas Cranach the Younger

Count Salemfels (former Director of the Prague Museum);
His daughter, P.M. Durand, Château de Chevron, Albertville, Savoie, France;
Mme. M. Paten, Paris;
With Duveen, New York, 1960;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 1981, lot 45 (as Lucas Cranach the Younger), for £36,300, when bought for the present Foundation.

New York, Duveen, Paintings by Lucas Cranach, 1960.

R. Fabbri, Pictures on exhibit, 1960, p. 8;
H. La Farge, Art News, May 1960, p. 12.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The panel, comprised of four planks, three joins, is cradled. The joins are unstable and there is movement along them and previous restorations. Several unstable hairline cracks can be detected with minor paint losses along them. The paint surface is raised and unstable in some areas, particularly along the top edge where evidence of recent attempted consolidation can be seen; this area is still fragile. Under Ultra-Violet light a scattering of restorations can be seen across the surface, the majority clumsy and excessive, where pin-prick paint losses have occurred, most notably to the figures and areas of the sky. The faces of the figures and horses are in good condition and ,apart from those areas already alluded to, the painting is in a good untouched condition with the texture and the impasto of the paint well preserved and many of the more vulnerable passages intact. The varnish is discoloured and its removal would improve the tonality. Offered in a dark wood frame with a gold sight edge."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This picture is strongly reminiscent of Lucas Cranach the Younger's signed painting of the same subject dated 1549 in Nuremberg, and must date from around the same time.¹  The figure of Saint Paul clad in armour and the horse from which he falls are particularly similar, and there is a clear relationship between the two works.  Both compositions are highly inventive, and find no obvious echoes in repeated compositions emanating from the Cranach workshop or wider circle of influence.  Both pictures mark a decisive break with the style of the artist's father Lucas Cranach the Elder, and even though it was not until the following year that the Elder Cranach left Wittenberg for Augsburg at the behest of the deposed Elector Johann Friedrich, it is clear that his son was establishing an independent style.  The palette and overall tonality with strong whites, the figural style and the cohesive and dynamic composition belong to the younger generation.  In some respects this invigoration of the Cranach family output recalls the energy of Lucas Cranach the Elder's early work in Vienna almost fifty years before.  In the figure of Saint Paul catapulted forward from his falling horse we see an echo of the turbaned figure at the left of Cranach the Elder's altarpiece of the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine in Budapest.² 

Ludwig Meyer also notes similarities between this picture and Lucas Cranach the Younger's 1549 Preaching of Saint John the Baptist in Braunschweig, and the later Löbnitzer Epitaph of 1562 in Halle.³

1.  Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum; see K. Löcher, Die Gemälde des 16.Jahrhunderts, Nuremberg 1997, pp. 164-6, reproduced in colour.
2.  Ráday Library of the Reformed Church, Budapest; see B. Brinkmann (ed.), Cranach, exhibition catalogue, London 2008, pp. 132-3, no. 11, reproduced in colour.
3.  Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum & Halle, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg; see I. Schulze, Lucas Cranach d.J. und die protestantische Bildkunst in Sachsen und Thüringen, Bucha bei Jena 2004, p. 66, reproduced & p. 161, reproduced.