Circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder

Anonymous Noble collection until 1978;
With Trafalgar Galleries, London.

Trafalgar Galleries at the Royal Academy, exhibition catalogue, London 1979, no. 7 reproduced.

The panel is uncradled but has developed a convex bow which has caused stress on the panel in the past resulting in a series of repaired old vertical splits; two running through the young knight on the chestnut charger, one running through the centre of the picture, and one running up through the maiden. There are restored areas, probably of associated losses, in the upper right of the sky and in the upper left in the rocks. The figures remain well preserved with very little intervention and much of the fine details in tact. There is some repaint in the dark skirts of the maiden. The restoration is unobtrusive and the varnish clear and even. Offered in a painted dark wood frame in good condition.
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On the basis of photographs Dr. Dieter Koepplin has suggested that this painting may have been produced in the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (written communication, 14 December 2013). He dates this work to around 1515-20 by comparison with Cranach's Martyrdom of Saint Catherine in the Archiepiscopal Palace in Kromeriz, Czech Republic.¹ The presence of the cipher MI surmounted by a crown on all the horse brasses has led to a proposed identification of the lead knight as the Emperor Maximilian I idealised as Saint George, but the features of the knight bear no relation to those of the Emperor. Maximilian was however a great supporter of the Order of Saint George, which had been founded by his father Frederick III in 1464, so the portrait may have been conceived or understood in an allegorical sense.  

1. M.J. Friedlander and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, no. 74.