Portrait of Johann the Steadfast

A folding diptych like this one usually paired a husband with his wife. Here the second panel holds a six-year-old boy. Duke Johann of Saxony had lost his wife, Sophie of Mecklenburg, in 1503, within two weeks of the birth of their son, so in 1509 Cranach set father beside heir. The duke was not yet elector. His elder brother Frederick the Wise held that title, and it passed to Johann only in 1525. The two halves answer each other in colour. A black gown stands against a green ground here, and on the boy's panel the green moves into his clothes and the black into the background. The gown is sewn with rows of knotted cord in white and gold. The frame is the original one. Paint has been found on its inner edges, so Cranach worked on the panels after they were already fitted into it.