Art Institute of Chicago

Luther as an Augustinian Friar, with Cap

Lucas Cranach the ElderLinkedCulture matchlcp-a38e74af5bec

Date

1521

Medium

Engraving in black on cream laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Object ID

30275

Perhaps Lucas Cranach’s most famous and most copied print, this profile portrait of Martin Luther was an accurate likeness; the artist and the Reformer were friends. Luther appears in his doctoral cap, as he taught at the University of Wittenberg. Possibly made to commemorate the scholar’s radical performance at the Diet of Worms, the print circulated when Luther was presumed dead but was actually in hiding, translating the New Testament into German. The Latin inscription translates as, “Lucas’s work is this picture of Luther’s mortal form; but he himself expressed his spirit’s eternal form,” and closes with Cranach’s flying serpent insignia.

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