Full title | Portrait of Johann the Steadfast |
---|---|
Artist | Lucas Cranach the Elder |
Artist dates | 1472 - 1553 |
Group | Diptych: Two Electors of Saxony |
Date made | 1509 |
Medium and support | Oil on wood |
Dimensions | 41.3 x 31 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1991 |
Inventory number | NG6538 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
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.
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.
Cranach painted Johann the Steadfast’s portrait many times throughout the Elector’s life, but this is one of few surviving individual portraits of Johann the Steadfast from before his reign as elector; the other representations are of Johann with his brother, Friedrich the Wise.
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.
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Portrait of Johann the Steadfast
Diptych: Two Electors of Saxony
These joined portraits depict two future electors of Saxony, Johann the Steadfast and his son, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous – Cranach worked as court painter to successive electors from 1505 until his death in 1553. The coats of arms on the back of the right panel help to confirm their identities.
The portraits have complementary colour schemes: the green of the background in the father’s portrait is echoed by the green of his son’s clothing, while the black background in the son’s portrait matches his father’s clothing. Johann Friedrich dominates more of the composition than his father and he faces towards the viewer, even though the convention was to place each sitter at a three-quarter turn toward the other.
The frame is original: paint has been detected on the inner edges of the frame, which suggests that the paintings were made after the wooden panels had been fitted into it.
This portrait diptych shows father and son, future electors of Saxony Johann the Steadfast (1468–1532) and Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous (1503–1554). The format was traditionally used to show a husband and wife, with the man depicted on the left and the woman on the right. Johann’s wife, Sophie of Mecklenburg, died in childbirth, and so Cranach instead portrayed father and son in this pendant format.
This portrait was made to assert the power of the electors of Saxony and to emphasise their hereditary lineage, confirming their dynastic right to rule. Cranach was first employed as a court painter in 1504. He worked for successive electors, and his workshop continued to be employed even after his death in 1553.
The portraits have complementary colour schemes: the green of the background in the father’s portrait is echoed by the green of his son’s clothing, while the black background in the son’s portrait matches the black of the father’s clothing. But Johann Friedrich dominates the composition in a way that Johann the Steadfast does not; Cranach has manipulated the scale of the portraits by placing the child higher up and closer to the viewer. He is still angelic and childlike, but has a commanding physical presence.
The frame is original: paint has been detected on the inner edges of the frame, which suggests that the paintings were made after the wooden panels had been fitted into it. This is known as an engaged frame.


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