Portrait of Caspar Cruciger (1504-1548), bust-length, holding a book

The present work is the earliest known portrait of Caspar Cruciger, the distinguished scholar and professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg who is perhaps best known for his close friendship with Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560). Born in Leipzig, Cruciger studied under the humanist scholar Peter Mosellanus. He attended the famed Leipzig Disputation between Martin Luther (1483-1546) and Johann Eck (1486-1543) in 1519 and became inspired by the Reformer. In 1521, to escape the plague he moved to Wittenberg, where he continued his studies. In 1524, he married Elizabeth von Merseburg, a former nun who, like Luther’s wife Katharina von Bora, had escaped her convent and freed herself from monastic life. Elizabeth herself would play an important role in the Reformation, as she was a poet and would become the first woman Protestant hymn writer. After a short stay in Magdeburg, where he served as rector of the newly founded Latin school and assisted Nikolaus von Amsdorf (1483-1565) in spreading the Protestant ideology, Cruciger returned to Wittenberg in 1528, where he received one of the first three doctorates in theology under the revised statutes of the theology faculty. Cruciger’s understanding of Hebrew made him an invaluable contributor to Luther’s translation of the Bible into German, and in this way he became a central member of the Reformer’s inner circle. In the last decade of his life, Cruciger published numerous essays, including significant commentaries on 1 Timothy, the Gospel of John, part of the Nicene Creed and several Psalms. The importance of Cruciger’s early contributions to the Protestant Reformation, though reflected in the writings of his contemporaries, was quickly forgotten due to 'a series of errors, half-truths, and mistaken assumptions', but were recognized again in the late twentieth century by Timothy J. Wengert ('Caspar Cruciger (1504-1548): The Case of the Disappearing Reformer', The Sixteenth Century Journal, Autumn 1989, XX, no. 3, p. 441). Indeed, Luther himself called Cruciger his 'Elisha', and reportedly said that 'if after his death one person would courageously do something for the preservation of true Christian doctrine and would, for the sake of pure doctrine, have to oppose forcefully the papists and other adversaries, he expected it to be this man [Caspar Cruciger]' (ibid., p. 439). The close bond between Luther and the Crucigers was strengthened through their children. Cruciger’s son, Caspar the Younger, succeeded Melanchthon as professor at the University of Wittenberg, and his daughter, Elisabeth, would eventually marry Luther’s son, Johannes (Hans) Luther.

Though the identity of the sitter had been forgotten by the time the present work was handled by Nicolas Acquavella in 1969, the painting was recognized and celebrated as a portrait of Caspar Cruciger in the early twentieth century, when it formed part of a substantial loan of nearly 100 pictures from the collection of Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911) to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Notably, also included in that loan was Cranach’s portrait of Cruciger’s close friend Philip Melanchthon (fig. 1), which was bequeathed to the Rijksmuseum in 1912 and subsequently placed on long-term loan to the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1951. As the two paintings share identical dimensions and each portrays its theologian against the same robin egg blue background, with Cruciger looking to his left and Melanchthon to his right, the two paintings almost certainly were created as pendants. Further support that the portraits of these close friends and collaborators were created together is given by the fact that each painting is signed in the same unusual fashion: the serpent insignia with an 'L' below it. Such pairings were commonplace in the Cranach workshop, which produced numerous paired portraits of key Protestant figures such as Luther and Katharina von Bora (1499-1552), the Electors of Saxony Frederick the Wise (1463-1525) and Johann I the Constant (1468-1532) and Luther and Melanchthon.

As Joshua Waterman has observed (written communication, 29 April 2021), the distinctive serpent insignia with an 'L' below it appears in at least two other portraits, also of the same size and generally of comparable quality with the present portrait and its companion in the Mauritshuis: the 1549 portrait of Erasmus and the undated deathbed portrait, said to be of Veit Dietrich (fig. 2; both Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Oldenburg). In fact, Michael Hofbauer (in his online Corpus Cranach database) has suggested that the latter of these portraits actually depicts Cruciger rather than Dietrich, an argument that seems particularly valid, considering the close resemblance of the sitter to Cruciger as he appears in our portrait and the fact that the other known likeness of Dietrich in Nuremberg looks entirely different.

Caspar Cruciger appears in several other works that originated in the Cranach workshop, all of which were painted after Cruciger’s and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s death. These include the destroyed Meyenburg Epitaph (formerly in the Evangelische Kirchengemeinde St. Blasii, Nordhausen), where he appears at upper left; the epitaph for Prince Joachim von Anhalt (Ev. Kirchgemeinde St. Johannis und St. Marien, Dessau), where he appears at left; the epitaph for Paul Eber and his family (Evangelische Stadtkirche St. Marien, Wittenberg), where he appears at right in the vineyard; and the Christ Blessing the Children (Schloss Gottorf, Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, Schleswig), where he appears in the background. Cruciger’s likeness was also disseminated across Europe in the form of prints, including a 1571 etching by Balthasar Jenichen (fig. 3) which follows the same basic model as the present portrait, showing Cruciger’s hands in more or less the same position relative to the book.

The 1928 catalogue accompanying the Loan Exhibition of German Primitives held at F. Kleinberger Galleries in New York noted that the present portrait was accompanied by a certificate from Max J. Friedländer suggesting the attribution to Lucas Cranach the Younger (loc. cit.). We are grateful to Dieter Koepplin for endorsing the attribution to Lucas Cranach the Younger on the basis of a photograph (written communication, 13 August 2021). We are also grateful to Joshua Waterman for generously providing information about this painting and for, on the basis of a photograph, suggesting that the portrait was produced during the lifetime of Lucas Cranach the Elder in his workshop, perhaps with the master’s participation (written communication, 29 April 2021).