Lucas Cranach the Younger

Lucas Cranach the Younger grew up inside a painting business, one of the largest in Germany, run by his father Lucas Cranach the Elder in Wittenberg, the town at the heart of Martin Luther's Reformation. When the father died in 1553, the son took over the whole operation.

The workshop turned out religious and courtly pictures almost like a brand, so consistent in style that art historians still argue over which panels are the father's and which the son's. Much of the trade was Protestant: portraits of Luther and his fellow reformers, and clear, didactic scenes contrasting law and grace for the new faith.

The younger Cranach became a leading citizen of Wittenberg, serving as its mayor, and kept the family manner alive for another generation after the founder was gone. He died there in 1586, and the studio's countless portraits are much of the reason we know what the leaders of the Reformation actually looked like.