Sibylle of Cleves
Lucas Cranach (German, 1515–1586)
c. 1547
- Medium
- woodcut with hand-coloring
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 32.6 x 21.4 cm (12 13/16 x 8 7/16 in.)
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Whitehill Art Purchase Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This hand-colored woodcut depicts Sibylle of Cleves, wife of Johann Friedrich of Saxony, shortly after the Schmalkaldic War (1546–47), when Protestant princes in Germanic lands fought against the Catholic emperor Charles V. After her husband’s defeat, Sibylle famously pleaded before the emperor on bended knee, helping secure commutation of his death sentence. Produced by Lucas Cranach the Younger around 1547, the print belongs to a series portraying key figures in the conflict and may have functioned as Protestant propaganda for distribution to allied courts. Sybille of Cleves was the only woman portrayed in the series.
