Lucas Cranach the Younger

With Pico Cellini Gallery, Rome, 1959;

Munich art market, 1967;

Acquired there or soon after by Friedrich Flick (1883-1972);

Bequeathed by the above to the grandfather of the present owner.

M.J. Friedländer and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, p.147, no. 389, reproduced (as Lucas Cranach the Elder).

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: This painting is on a strong, fairly thick panel with two joints. There is a faint even curve across the panel but the joints have never moved or been touched. Old horsehair webbing was laid along the back of the joints early in the life of the painting (beneath the earliest of the labels) and no supporting bars have ever been needed. Small old worm holes are scattered across the back, evidently long dead, and leaving no sign of underlying weakness. No cracks can be seen behind, and only the faint trace of a small surface crack at the centre of the top edge in the front above the Madonna. Such remarkable stability is extremely rare. No trace of the joints can be found in the perfectly preserved dark background. Almost more exceptional is the virtually untouched intact condition of the flesh painting in the figures. A small area with slightly more distinct craquelure can be seen near the Madonna's ear on the left, where a tiny retouching from the past can just be seen. But elsewhere the immaculate modelling of the Madonna's face, her hands and the Child's body throughout has been perfectly preserved, intact and unworn. Under ultra violet light one or two minute touches can be found on the Madonna's hand, and on the Child's forehead and hand, but these are insignificant and superficial. There does seem to have been a few past retouchings in the blue drapery, while all the other drapery remains untouched. The only place where any actual, fairly recent, retouching can be found under ultra violet light is along the outer edges: fairly consistently down the right edge, especially towards the right base corner, with some along the base edge mainly towards the right end, and only a touch or two up the left edge. This painting is exceptionally finely preserved. This report was not done under laboratory conditions
"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."

Cranach’s depictions of the Virgin and child are amongst his most inventive, and this beautifully preserved example is no exception. Certain parts of the painting reveal a finesse of modelling that may explain both Max J. Friedlander and Ernst Buchner’s elevation of it into the oeuvre of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Particularly, the face, hands and feet of the Christ child are both supremely well drawn and brilliantly executed. The translucency of some of the glazes reveals the original underdrawing around both mouths: Christ’s was originally conceived as wider open, and the Virgin’s with a slightly more pronounced smile, such that it would have resembled more closely a related version recorded by Friedlander as in the collection of Baron von Grundherr, Vienna.¹

The design was popularised in the Cranach workshop and several versions by the younger Cranach are known.² All other versions differ from the present in showing the Virgin tilting her head to our left, and in all but one of them Christ glances to the side and the Virgin, instead, makes eye contact with us. Our direct interaction with Christ, rather than the Virgin, accentuates the power of the message before us, a message made plainer still by the simplicity of the design and the jet-black setting, foregoing all extraneous detail. The painting would have had as its purpose the stimulation of religious devotion in its spectators, both through the very overt connection between Christ and the viewer and through our contemplation of the Eucharist that he acts out before us. The triangular design, formed by the Virgin’s beautifully rendered hair that flows down in two diagonals from the top of her head, joined beneath by the horizontal of her forearms, is a direct reference to the Holy Trinity and this underscores the yet more overt reference to the Eucharist as Christ plucks a grape and places it within his lips as if acting out the words 'this is my blood' that he spoke at the Last Supper. The Virgin, relegated to a supporting role, is serene and contemplative before this, as we should be too.

Through the preceding centuries, both in northern and southern European art, the infant Christ was most commonly portrayed cradled in His mother’s arms, suckling or asleep on her chest, locked in a tender embrace, or seated in benediction of the infant St. John. While there are many prior portrayals of the Christ child standing on His mother’s lap in western art - in the north by Rogier, Schongauer, and Dürer, and in the south by Bellini, Vivarini, and other, mostly Venetian, trailblazers - the combination here of factors that elevate the Christ child to dominate three-quarters of the composition, to display himself full-frontal, and to make direct eye-contact with us, is hitherto untried and makes for one of the most explicit and unambiguous symbols of its kind in the language of Christian art to date.

The form of the serpent device, showing the wings raised and folded, dates the painting to after 1537, the point at which Lucas Cranach the Younger gained control of the workshop following the untimely death of his elder brother Hans in 1535.

The painting was certified by the late E. Buchner on 30 December 1960 when he dated it to 1525-30, the mark not mentioned and more latterly has been confirmed as the work of Lucas Cranach the Younger by both Dr. Dieter Koepplin and Dr. Werner Schade.

 

1. Friedlander, op. cit., p. 147, no. 388, reproduced.
2. Other than the version mentioned above, these are last recorded by Friedlander as in the N. Caro collection, Berlin (1932), and a private collection, Dortmund (1975): see Ibid., pp. 146-7, nos. 386-7, both reproduced. All are of the broadly the same width and only the Caro version is significantly taller, measuring 85cm where the others measure between 75cm and 78cm.