| Lucas Cranach the Elder was one of the busiest portrait painters of his day. His "Portrait of Elector Friedrich III the Wise of Saxony" (1463–1525) from the Schönborn-Buchheim Collection was one of the first major serial painting commissions. As a companion piece to the portrait of Friedrich’s brother, the Elector Johann (b. 1468), it was one of the side panels of a triptych. The centre panels showed Cranach’s patron and reigning Elector of Saxony, Friedrich the Magnanimous. Sixty electoral portraits were subsequently painted by Cranach in two formats. They were intended to show a regent’s loyalty to the Emperor as well as his dynastic legitimacy. The role of the portrait as a strategic medium can also be ascribed to the numerous likenesses of Friedrich’s protégé Martin Luther that circulated widely as prints. Here, the Elector presents himself as a patron of artists and scholars, which he actually was as the founder of the University of Wittenberg. The portrait does not feature any insignia of power. The figure of Friedrich, intersected by the frame, conveys authority, while his face, with its striking chin, suggests determination. In marked contrast, his delicate hands adopt a sophisticated pose that attests to his sensitivity and mental agility. This new gift of observation was known as the ’invention of character’. In it, a realistic approach not only reproduced facial features, but also helped the artist capture his sitter’s personality. Only certain parts of the Elector’s body, such as his face and hands, are treated sculpturally; in contrast, his bulky body is reduced to a silhouette-like, two-dimensional form. |
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Oil on panel
height 80 cm, width 49 cm
Schönborn-Buchheim Collection, Inv.-No. G079
Provenance: 1746 first recorded in the inventory of the collection of Count Friedrich Karl von Schönborn
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