Portrait of Martin Luther

1533 · Private collection

portrait

For his Portrait of Martin Luther, Georg Pencz openly draws inspiration from the famous painting by Lucas Cranach. Painting his portrait in 1533, Pencz seems to take inspiration from the matching piece of Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora painted in 1528, versions of which are kept in the museums of Weimar and Darmstadt. The components of this type of portrait with its three-quarter pose, dark clothing and doctoral cap, became characteristic in the portrayal of the theologian.

About the Artist

Georg Pencz

1500 – 1550

German painter and engraver of religious and mythological subjects and portraits, active in his native Nuremberg, where he was an assistant of Dürer. He travelled in Italy early in his career and again in 1539, when he is recorded in Florence and Rome, and his work is deeply imbued with Italian influence. The sharp outlines and glossy textures of his portraits show, in particular, a kinship with Bronzino. In 1525 Pencz was expelled from Nuremberg with the Beham brothers, two other "godless artists", for their radical Protestant views, but the sentence was soon revoked and he returned to the city. In 1550, he was appointed painter to Duke Albrecht of Prussia, but died in the same year.

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