- 425
Lucas Cranach the Younger
Description
- Lucas Cranach the Younger
- Christ as the Man of Sorrows together with the Virgin and Saint John
- signed upper left with the artist's device of a serpent with folded wings
- oil on panel, a fragment
Provenance
Confiscated from the above on 18, November 1938 and allocated for the Kunstmuseum Linz (inv. 2550);
Recovered by the Monuments Men and sent to the Munich Central Collecting Point (inv. 4273), on 15 July 1945;
Transferred to Wiesbaden on 25 May 1949 and restituted to the heirs of the private collector on 2 December 1949;
Thence by descent.
Literature
H. C. Löhr, Das Braune Haus der Kunst : Hitler und der "Sonderauftrag Linz" : Visionen, Verbrechen, Verluste, Berlin 2005, p. 130, citation no. 9.
Condition
"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."
Catalogue Note
Lucas Cranach the Younger's first experimentation with this composition, known through versions in the Vatican and the collection of the Historical Society in Regensburg,3 are close to his father's 1534 composition although the figures are brought even closer to the pictorial plane and the frieze of angels is reduced to a few small praying cherubs in each corner. Thus Christ's bruised and broken body becomes more of a feature standing out against the dramatic dark background. The present composition is clearly closely related to this version but it comes closest both compositionally and stylistically to a later- circa 1540 -version by Cranach the Younger in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg.4 At some point in its history this panel was likely cut down, and thus much of the lower register of the composition is no longer visible, but it is almost certain that as in the Hamburg version, Christ was originally seated on the just visible edge of his tomb with his hands loosely folded across his lap. Still clearly discernible, however, is his tortured expression of woe and his crucified body torn and bleeding. Mary and St. John flank Christ, with the former weeping into her robe and the latter with his hands clasped in prayer. Apart from the edge of the tomb the background is one of unrelieved darkness and the angels featured in the previous compositions have now disappeared.
We are grateful to Dr. Dieter Koepplin for endorsing the attribution to Lucas Cranach the Younger, on the basis of photographs.
1. See M.J. Friedländer and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, p. 101, cat. no. 156.
2. Ibid., pp. 112-3, no. 219.
3. Ibid., p. 146, no. 383.
4. Ibid., p. 146, no. 384.