The Princesses Sibylla, Emilia and Sidonia of Saxony

The three richly dressed girls in heavy gold chains are sisters, Sibylla, Emilia and Sidonia, daughters of Duke Henry of Saxony, whose line was the younger branch of the house Cranach served. Scholars have never agreed on when he painted them. Proposed dates run from about 1526, when they were roughly 11, ten and eight, to about 1535, the museum's current view, when they were close to 20. All three went on to marry princes. Emilia married Margrave George of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1533, the brother of the Margrave Casimir whom Cranach had painted 11 years earlier. Sibylla married the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg in 1540. Sidonia's marriage went worst. In 1545 she wed Duke Eric II of Brunswick-Calenberg, ten years her junior, who later returned to the Catholic faith, kept her under house arrest and, when he fell ill, accused her of witchcraft. Four women were burned as witches in the affair before a court cleared Sidonia in 1574. The first Vienna inventory to record the painting, made between about 1612 and 1618, calls it simply three maidens by Krainacher.