Portrait of Martin Luther, 1559

About the Work

These companion portraits of the two Wittenberg reformators Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon were reunited in the Städel in 2010. The lively modelling of their faces exemplifies the superb painting skills of Lucas Cranach the Younger. The portraits not only needed to portray the sitters in a lifelike manner, however, but also to depict their accomplishments. For this the artist arrived at an original solution. Both reformers display their writings to the viewer – Luther’s in German and Melanchthon’s in Latin and Greek. The two figures were also characterized in different and interesting ways. While Luther appears to nearly burst the picture frame with the considerable bulk of his body, Melanchthon seems comparatively fragile and, moreover, entirely attuned to Luther’s dominating form.