Studio of Lucas Cranach the Younger

The Royal House of Hanover;
Schloß Marienburg, as hanging in Room no. 25, inv. nos. 65 and 64 respectively (according to labels on the reverse), second half of the 19th century;
Possibly Schloß Cumberland, Austria, from 1866;
Schloß Blankenburg, inv. nos. 60 and 61 respectively (according to labels on the reverse), from 1945;
Then Schloß Marienburg, Lower Saxony;
Bought privately by the present owner.

The theologian and reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) became a close friend of Lucas Cranach the Elder's in Wittenberg while the latter was court painter to the Electors of Saxony. Luther met Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) circa 1518 when the latter was a young humanist scholar at the University of Wittenberg. Since Melanchthon went on to become Luther's colleague and ally, the two reformers were often shown together and Cranach (and his studio) produced numerous double-portraits of the sitters: see, for example, the painting sold in these Rooms, 29 April 1937, lot 108 (dated 1558), in which the figures are shown in exactly the same poses as here; or the panel sold, London, Phillips, 5 December 1995, lot 28 (with inscriptions). For a more detailed discussion about Martin Luther and Lucas Cranach see the note to lot 24 in the evening session of this sale.

Cranach's portraits of Luther and Melanchthon were produced in two phases: the earlier versions date from the 1530s and show Luther wearing a cap and both sitters looking younger, whilst the later versions show the sitters with grey hair, shorter beards, and distinctly older (for the earlier examples see the panels dated 1532 in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, reproduced in M.J. Friedländer & J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, pp. 130-131, cat. nos. 314 and 315). The present panels relate to the later variants and by the time they were painted - probably in the late 1550s, given the incomplete date on the Portrait of Philip Melancthon and the age of the sitters - Lucas Cranach the Younger had taken over the running of the workshop of his father (who had died in 1553).