Portrait de Lucas Cranach l'Ancien

Lucas Cranach the Elder had spent decades as court painter in Wittenberg, close enough to Martin Luther to stand godfather to one of his children and to supply the Reformation with its printed portraits. This picture shows him old, inscribed with his age, 77, a bearded man in black against a plain blue ground. For a long time the Uffizi held it as a self-portrait, until the style pointed instead to his son, Lucas the Younger, who ran the family workshop. It was painted in 1550, a hard year: the Protestant elector the Cranachs served had been captured in war, and the aged painter would soon leave Wittenberg to join him in exile. The father died three years later. The son gave him a steady, unsentimental gaze.