Cristo che benedice i bambini

By 1537 Lucas Cranach ran a busy Wittenberg workshop and was a close friend of Martin Luther, whose Reformation he did more than anyone to picture. This scene of Christ welcoming a crowd of mothers and small children became a Lutheran favourite, and you can see why in the theology behind it. Luther taught that heaven is reached through faith and grace, not through earned good works, and children who had done nothing to deserve it made the point plainly. Cranach and his shop painted the subject many times over. This version later hung at Wawel Castle in Krakow, was seized by German forces in the Second World War, and came back to the castle in 1968.