Lucas Cranach the Younger

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery
Hermitage Museum, Russia

Lucas Cranach the Younger (Lucas Cranach der Jüngere; 4 October 1515 – 25 January 1586) was a German Renaissance painter and portraitist, also known as the son of Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Early life

Lucas Cranach the Younger was born in Wittenberg on 4 October 1515 as the youngest son of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Barbara Brengebier. He began his career as an apprentice in his father's workshop alongside his brother Hans. Henceforth, his own reputation and fame grew. After his father's death, he assumed control over the workshop.

On February 20, 1541, he married Barbara Brück, who went on to bear three sons and a daughter. She died February 10, 1550, and thereafter Cranach remarried, wedding Magdalena Schurff on May 24, 1551. This union produced three daughters and two sons, including Augustin Cranach.

He is known for portraits and simple versions of allegorical and mythical scenes. The style of his paintings can be so similar to those of his father that there have been some difficulties in attribution of their works. Prominent scholars seem to, nowadays, tend toward the opinion of honest description of his talent as, stoic and undeveloped, at most.

Works

• 
  Portrait of Georg Cracow and family
• 
  Adam and Eve
• 
  John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony
• 
  Lucretia

External links

• Cranach Digital Archive (cda) The research resource on Lucas Cranach
• The Cranach Altar Painting in Weimar, Germany
• Fifteenth- to eighteenth-century European paintings: France, Central Europe, the Netherlands, Spain, and Great Britain, a collection catalog fully available online as a PDF, which contains material on Cranach the Younger (cat. no. 10)