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Lot Essay
This finely painted portrait depicts one of the most celebrated humanists of the Northern Renaissance, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. A man of brilliant mind, he preached peace, tolerance and reason in the midst of the religious and military upheavals ignited by the Protestant Reformation. Although Lucas Cranach the Elder was a contemporary of Erasmus, this portrait was not painted from life. Rather, it was based on a famous depiction of the sitter by Hans Holbein the Younger, executed in 1523 (fig. 1; private collection, on loan to the National Gallery, London). Holbein and his workshop produced a number of simplified variants based on this template, showing Erasmus with his hand clasped, set against a uniform blue or green background (for instance, Basel, Kunstmuseum; New York, Metropolitan Museum; and Zurich, private collection; see P. van der Coelen (ed.), Images of Erasmus, Rotterdam, 2008, pp. 63-82). The large number of surviving portraits based on this model is testament to the fascination exerted by the scholar throughout Europe, and the wide dissemination of his image parallels the breadth of his own network, revealed in his wide-ranging correspondence. When he died, a new wave of portraits were produced.
Although Cranach’s portraits of Erasmus were based on Holbein’s prototype, he imbued them with his distinctively linear style. Notable versions include a panel dated 1536, the year of the Erasmus’s death (19.7 x 14.7 cm.; Bern, Kunstmuseum), a picture formerly in Gotha, Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein (18 x 15 cm.; lost in 1943), and a panel recently acquired by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (19.1 x 14.6 cm). Whilst these works were all painted on a small scale, the present panel is of a more ambitious format, indeed it appears to be the largest known version of this type, possibly indicative of a more important commission. The picture’s refined technique and the fact that it bears Cranach’s serpent device place it within the upper tier of his studio’s production, as confirmed by Dieter Koepplin, to whom we are grateful, who also suggested that it might be by the hand of the master’s talented son Hans Cranach.
In contrast with Holbein’s more youthful-looking prototype, Erasmus is shown here as he appeared in his later age. Tufts of the sitter’s grey hair poke out from beneath his black cap, deep lines mark the area around his mouth, and his cheeks are more deeply sunken; but the acuity and intensity of his scholarly intellect are still apparent in his piercing dark eyes. There is a great contrast between the fragile delicacy of Erasmus’s body and the strength of his mind, unchallenged by the years.
This portrait came to light in the nineteenth century, in a family descended from Johann Henckel, a preacher and confessor to Queen Mary of Hungary, sister of Emperor Charles V. Henckel was a friend and admirer of Erasmus, with whom he corresponded, urging him in 1528 to dedicate a piece of writing to the bereaved queen, a suggestion Erasmus followed in his De vidua christiana (P.G. Bietenholz and T.B. Deutsche, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and the Reformation (Volumes 1-3), Toronto, 2003, pp. 175-6). Henckel may have acquired the portrait as a memento of his scholarly friend.
We are grateful to Dr. Dieter Koepplin and Dr. Michael Hofbauer for independently confirming that this portrait is a high quality work from the studio of Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Although Cranach’s portraits of Erasmus were based on Holbein’s prototype, he imbued them with his distinctively linear style. Notable versions include a panel dated 1536, the year of the Erasmus’s death (19.7 x 14.7 cm.; Bern, Kunstmuseum), a picture formerly in Gotha, Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein (18 x 15 cm.; lost in 1943), and a panel recently acquired by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (19.1 x 14.6 cm). Whilst these works were all painted on a small scale, the present panel is of a more ambitious format, indeed it appears to be the largest known version of this type, possibly indicative of a more important commission. The picture’s refined technique and the fact that it bears Cranach’s serpent device place it within the upper tier of his studio’s production, as confirmed by Dieter Koepplin, to whom we are grateful, who also suggested that it might be by the hand of the master’s talented son Hans Cranach.
In contrast with Holbein’s more youthful-looking prototype, Erasmus is shown here as he appeared in his later age. Tufts of the sitter’s grey hair poke out from beneath his black cap, deep lines mark the area around his mouth, and his cheeks are more deeply sunken; but the acuity and intensity of his scholarly intellect are still apparent in his piercing dark eyes. There is a great contrast between the fragile delicacy of Erasmus’s body and the strength of his mind, unchallenged by the years.
This portrait came to light in the nineteenth century, in a family descended from Johann Henckel, a preacher and confessor to Queen Mary of Hungary, sister of Emperor Charles V. Henckel was a friend and admirer of Erasmus, with whom he corresponded, urging him in 1528 to dedicate a piece of writing to the bereaved queen, a suggestion Erasmus followed in his De vidua christiana (P.G. Bietenholz and T.B. Deutsche, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and the Reformation (Volumes 1-3), Toronto, 2003, pp. 175-6). Henckel may have acquired the portrait as a memento of his scholarly friend.
We are grateful to Dr. Dieter Koepplin and Dr. Michael Hofbauer for independently confirming that this portrait is a high quality work from the studio of Lucas Cranach the Elder.