Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Johann the Steadfast

Johann the Steadfast, elector of Saxony from 1525 to 1532, would have been about 38 when this portrait was made. He wears a sumptuous black hat and coat, both decorated with gold thread and seed pearls. The collar of his white shirt is embroidered with more gold thread and pearl beads. A large gold brooch, studded with precious stones and in the shape of a cross, is pinned to his hat, and a large black feather protrudes from its edge. Gold and jewelled rings adorn his finger and his thumb.

This panel is part of a diptych (a painting made of two parts) – the conjoining panel depicts Johann’s son, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous. Traditionally, portrait diptychs would show a man and his wife, or a recently engaged couple, but Johann’s wife, Sophie of Mecklenburg, had died in childbirth. Ten years after Sophie’s death, Johann married Margaret of Anhalt-Köthen, with whom he had four children.

Johann the Steadfast inherited the title of elector after the death of his brother, Friedrich the Wise. As his name suggests, Johann gave support to the Protestant cause, as his brother had done before him. He was an early supporter of Martin Luther, the religious reformer who helped to promote the spread of the Protestant Reformation. He acted as Luther’s patron and protector during the reformer’s political exile. In 1527 he established a Lutheran church and made himself bishop.

Cranach made other portraits of Johann throughout his life, although this is one of few surviving individual portraits of him from before he became elector. In other depictions from this time he is shown alongside his brother, Friedrich.