Cranach, Lucas, a celebrated German painter, so named from Kronach in the bishopric of Bamberg, Upper Franconia, where he was born, 4th October 1472. Little is known of his early life, but he seems to have been instructed by his father, and, possibly, by Matthew Grundewald; to have resided in Gotha, where he married Barbara Brehmier; and to have accompanied Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, to the Holy Land in 1493. Certainly he was befriended by that prince, and was his court-painter at Wittenberg, an appointment which he received in 1508, along with a patent of nobility, and the 'motto,' or kleinod, of a crowned and winged serpent, with which he marked his subsequent works, instead of (sometimes in combination with) the initials which he had previously used. Monopolies for printing and the sale of medicine were also bestowed upon him. The house in which he carried on his manifold occupations was standing at Wittenberg till 1871, and his importance in the town may be gathered from the fact that in 1537, and again in 1540, he was elected a burgomaster. In 1509 he accompanied an embassy to the Emperor Maximilian, and while in the Netherlands he portrayed the prince, afterwards Charles V., then a boy of nine. After the death of the Elector Frederick in 1525, he was continued in his official position by his brother, and also by his successor, John Frederick the Magnanimous, whose captivity at Augsburg the artist shared, and whose release he is believed to have procured from the emperor in 1552. He returned with his master to Weimar, and died there on 16th October of the following year. The superiority of his earlier works, both in painting and engraving, is doubtless to be accounted for by the fact that in later life the pressure of numerous commissions necessitated the assistance of his sons, and of many other pupils. His paintings, executed in oils on panel, include sacred and a few classical subjects, hunting-scenes, and portraits.
His drawing is commonly hard and defective, but his colouring is rich, warm, and effective, and a certain homely earnestness, sometimes mingled with humour, characterises his productions. A quaint portrait of a girl in an elaborate costume from his hand is in the National Gallery, London. He was closely associated with the German Reformers, many of whom were portrayed by himself and his pupils. Figures of Luther and Melanchthon, and the painter himself, are introduced in his 'Crucifixion' in the Stadtkirche, Weimar, a work engraved in Waagen's Handbook of Painting (ed. of 1874), and usually regarded as the artist's most important composition. Three of his copper engravings, dated 1519, 1520, and 1521, represent Luther; and among his other principal works with the burin are 'The Penitence of St John Chrysostom' (1509), and a portrait of the Elector Frederick. His wood-engravings are more numerous, including 'The Passion,' 15 cuts; 'The Martyrdom of the Apostles,' 12 cuts; and 'The Wittenberg Hagiology,' 119 cuts. He had three sons, all of whom were painters.—The second of them, Lucas, the younger, born 1515, was a burgomaster of Wittenberg. He painted in the manner of his father, and their works are difficult to distinguish, especially as both artists used a similar mark. According to Schuchardt, however, in the productions of the son the crowned serpent appears with the wings folded, instead of erect as in those of the father. His 'Crucifixion,' or 'Nativity,' and a picture of 'The Lord's Vineyard,' symbolical of the progress of the Reformation, are in the Stadtkirche at Wittenberg, and his works may also be studied in Berlin, Munich, and at Dresden, where are his portraits of the Electors Maurice and Augustus, and a 'Crucifixion.' He died at Wittenberg in 1586.