Portraits of Martin Luther and Katharina Bora

By 1529 Martin Luther had done something a monk was not supposed to do. He had married, and his wife Katharina von Bora had herself left a convent to do it. These paired portraits turned that private fact into public argument. The format came out of Lucas Cranach the Elder's workshop in Wittenberg, which around 1528 to 1530 turned out the reformer and his wife in matching panels by the dozen, so supporters across the German lands could own the couple as a sign of the new faith. Whose hand painted this particular pair is not recorded. Luther's panel once carried a line from the prophet Isaiah, that in quietness and hope shall be your strength. Beside him Katharina looks out steadily, a former nun who had married four years earlier and now sat for her portrait as his wife.