Lucas Cranach the Elder

Cranach worked in Vienna before becoming court painter to the Electors of Saxony at Wittenberg in 1505, a post he held for decades. A close friend of Martin Luther, he painted the reformer and his circle many times and designed woodcuts for Protestant publications, while running a large, productive studio that turned out portraits, altarpieces and slender mythological nudes, including many versions of The Judgment of Paris. He followed the deposed Elector John Frederick into exile and died at Weimar.

Written by Ochre Editions.