Lucas Cranach d. Ä. und Werkstatt Lot n° 1007

Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop Christ as the Man of Sorrows Oil on wood. 83 x 55.5 cm (rounded at the top). Expertise Prof. Dr. Gunnar Heydenreich, Diana Blumenroth, CICS, TH Cologne, technical analysis report 23-0549, 18.7.2023. Provenance Auction Weinmüller, Munich, June 22/23, 1960, lot 868 - Hessian aristocratic collection. According to Prof. Dr. Gunnar Heydenreich, this depiction of the Man of Sorrows is "a high-quality work by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop", created between 1537 and 1540 (expertise dated 18.7.2023). According to Heydenreich, the work is characterized "in essential areas (hands, face, eyes, crown of thorns...) by a high painterly quality." Moreover, the technical investigations of the materials have shown that the main features of the support correspond to other authentic works from the workshop production and that the size of the painting is the frequently used standard "D" format. With regard to the underdrawing of the painting, it is stated that the "compositional arrangement on the painting ground, freely drawn with a dry medium, can be recognized in a similar form in other works by Lucas Cranach the Elder". Christ is shown to the viewer with his wounds, his suffering face, seated on a stone parapet and his body marked by the scourging. His hands hang down powerlessly and he holds a rod and scourge in his left hand, revealing the stigmata. The Man of Sorrows as a single figure - without assistant figures and without accessories - represents the most intense realization of this pictorial theme in Cranach's oeuvre. Here, the dialogue between the suffering Christ - with the wounds of the crucifixion, but alive - and the viewer is most direct. The iconography of the Man of Sorrows has played a central role in Christian art since the Middle Ages and was widespread until the Reformation - even among Protestants - only losing popularity in the course of the 16th century. Under Lucas Cranach, the depiction experienced one last great flowering, and the artist devoted himself to it again and again, both for altarpieces and devotional pictures, especially around 1515 and then again in the years after 1537, when this panel is also dated.