Portrait of Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous

The date 1509 is painted in yellow high on the right, and the boy beside it, Johann Friedrich of Saxony, was six that year. Cranach places him higher in his panel and closer to us than his father in the neighbouring one, so the child looks almost as large as the man. He is dressed for show. A green hat carries a great spray of white ostrich plumes and gold brooches, a heavy twisted chain hangs over a slashed green doublet with red showing through, and both his hands close on the hilt of a small dagger. On the back of this panel are the arms of Saxony joined with those of Mecklenburg, his mother's family. In 1688 the Margraves of Baden-Durlach moved their collection to Basel, out of reach of French troops. The Vischer family bought the pair there in 1808 and kept it until 1990.