Luther as an Augustinian Friar, with Cap
Medium
Engraving in black on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate/sheet: 20.7 × 15 cm (8 3/16 × 5 15/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
30275
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Perhaps Lucas Cranach’s most famous and most copied print, this profile portrait of Martin Luther was an accurate likeness; the artist and the Reformer were friends. Luther appears in his doctoral cap, as he taught at the University of Wittenberg. Possibly made to commemorate the scholar’s radical performance at the Diet of Worms, the print circulated when Luther was presumed dead but was actually in hiding, translating the New Testament into German. The Latin inscription translates as, “Lucas’s...
About the Artist
Lucas Cranach the Elder · 1472–1553
Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472-1553) was one of the most prominent German Renaissance painters and a key artistic figure of the Protestant Reformation. Born in Kronach, Franconia, to the painter Hans Maler, Cranach began his career in Vienna around 1502, where he became one of the founders of the Danube School, a movement characterized by expressive landscape painting and emotional force. His ea...