Portrait of Magdalena of Saxony, Wife of Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472–1553)
c. 1529
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 59.8 × 41.6 cm (23 9/16 × 16 3/8 in.); Framed: 69.3 × 50.8 × 5.8 cm (27 1/4 × 20 × 2 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Kate S. Buckingham
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As court painter to the electors of Saxony, Lucas Cranach the Elder developed a portrait style that catered to his patrons’ concern with dynastic continuity by emphasizing their princely status through careful depictions of their sumptuous garb and lavish jewelry. The artist’s attention to such details enabled the identification of this sitter: a signet ring in a companion portrait of her husband in the Philadelphia Museum of Art reveals her to be the Saxon princess Magdalena. A watercolor showing Magdalena in the same richly patterned dress suggests that Cranach made this portrait during his visit to Berlin around 1529.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
