Albrecht of Brandenburg as St Jerome in a Landscape

Albrecht of Brandenburg as St Jerome in a Landscape

Title

Albrecht of Brandenburg as St Jerome in a Landscape

[Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979, No. 184A]

Painting on wood

Medium

Painting on wood

[Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979, no. 184A]

Oak wood

[Auct. Cat. New York 2015, Sale 3707, Lot 117]

Albrecht of Brandenburg is depicted as St Jerome. He wears the vestments of a cardinal and is seated at a tree stump that serves him as a table. In front of him is an open book, to his right a crucifix and more books are stored below. The lion

Albrecht of Brandenburg is depicted as St Jerome. He wears the vestments of a cardinal and is seated at a tree stump that serves him as a table. In front of him is an open book, to his right a crucifix and more books are stored below. The lion lies in the bottom left corner and the bottom right corner is animated by a pair of partridges and their chicks. On the left half of the painting behind Albrecht there is a dense wood with a stag. The right side opens out onto an expansive landscape.

[Görres, cda 2014]

Attributions
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder

Attributions

Lucas Cranach the Elder

[Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979, No. 184A]

Workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder

[Tacke 2006 D, 122-124]

Production date
about 1527

Production date

about 1527

[Exhib. Cat. Basel 1974, No. 47]

Dimensions
Dimensions of support: 49 x 37 cm

Dimensions

  • Dimensions of support: 49 x 37 cm

  • [Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979, No. 184A]

  • 49.5 x 37.1 cm

  • [Auct. Cat. New York 2015, Sale 3707, Lot 117]

Signature / Dating

Artist's insignia at the lower left on tree trunk: indistinct, remnants of a winged serpent

Signature / Dating

  • Artist's insignia at the lower left on tree trunk: indistinct, remnants of a winged serpent

Owner
Private Collection
Repository
Private Collection
CDA ID
PRIVATE_NONE-P014
FR (1978) Nr.
FR184A
Persistent Link
https://lucascranach.org/en/PRIVATE_NONE-P014/

Provenance

  • Andreas Achenbach (1815-1910), Düsseldorf; (?) sale, Lepke, Berlin, 17 November 1910, lot 148.
  • Marczell von Nemes (1866-1930), Budapest and Munich.
  • Dr. Karl Lanz (1873-1921), Mannheim, by 1917.
  • with Karl Haberstock, Berlin, by 1923
  • where acquired for 18,000 Swiss francs on 15 May 1923, with a letter of expertise by M.J. Friedländer, by B. Hürlimann-Hirzel, Zurich
  • by descent in the family of the present owner.
  • Lanz Collection, Hannover
  • sold at Christie's New York 2015, lot 117
    [Auct. Cat. New York 2015, Sale 3707, Lot 117]

Exhibitions

Basel 1974, no. 47
Rotterdam 2008/2009, no. 28

Literature

Reference on page Catalogue Number Figure / Plate
Exhib. Cat. Rotterdam 2008 No. 28
EditorPeter van der Coelen
TitleImages of Erasmus [Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen]
Place of PublicationRotterdam
Year of Publication2008
Brinkmann 2007 22
AuthorBodo Brinkmann
TitleDas Lächeln der Madonna. Lucas Cranach und die Folgen
Publicationin Bodo Brinkmann, ed., Cranach der Ältere, Exhib. Cat. Frankfurt
Place of PublicationOstfildern
Year of Publication2007
Pages17-27
Tacke 2007 A 87
AuthorAndreas Tacke
TitleWith Cranach's Help. Counter-Reformation Art before the Council of Trent
Publicationin Bodo Brinkman, ed., Cranach, [Exhib. Cat. London, The Royal Academy]
Place of PublicationLondon
Year of Publication2007
Link http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2012/2029
Pages81-89
Tacke 2007 C 87
AuthorAndreas Tacke
TitleMit Cranachs Hilfe: Antireformatorische Kunstwerke vor dem Tridentiner Konzil
Publicationin Bodo Brinkmann, ed., Cranach der Ältere, [Exhib. Cat. Frankfurt am Main]
Place of PublicationOstfildern
Year of Publication2007
Link http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2012/2000
Pages81-89
Tacke 2006 D 122-124 Fig. 5
AuthorAndreas Tacke
TitleAlbrecht als Heiliger Hieronymus. Damit "der Barbar überall dem Gelehrten weiche!"
Publicationin Andreas Tacke, ed., Der Kardinal. Albrecht von Brandenburg - Renaissancefürst und Mäzen [eine Ausstellung ...], Essays [Exhib. Cat. Moritzburg, Halle, 2006]
Volume2
Place of PublicationRegensburg
Year of Publication2006
Link http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2012/1997
Polleross 1988 310
AuthorF. B. Polleross
TitleDas sakrale Identifikationsporträt: ein höfischer Bildtypus vom 13. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert
SeriesManuskripte für Kunstwissenschaft in der Wernerschen Verlagsgesellschaft
Place of PublicationWorms
Year of Publication1988
Friedmann 1980 132
AuthorHerbert Friedmann
TitleA bestiary for Saint Jerome: animal symbolism in European religious art
Place of PublicationWashington
Year of Publication1980
Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979 184A
AuthorMax J. Friedländer, Jakob Rosenberg
EditorG. Schwartz
TitleDie Gemälde von Lucas Cranach
Place of PublicationBasel, Boston, Stuttgart
Year of Publication1979
Exhib. Cat. Basel 1974/1976 101-104 047 Fig. 40
AuthorDieter Koepplin, Tilman Falk
TitleLukas Cranach. Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik
Volume1, 2
Place of PublicationBasel, Stuttgart
Year of Publication1974
Link http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-diglit-104522
Cat. Mannheim 1917 8 No. 13
Authorn. a.
TitleGemäldesammlung Dr. Karl Lanz, Mannheim
Place of PublicationMannheim
Year of Publication1917

Research History / Discussion

Cranach's Portrait of Albrecht von Brandenburg as Saint Jerome in a landscape is an icon of Northern Renaissance art. The picture is rare surviving evidence of the relationship between Albrecht von Brandenburg, the supreme Catholic dignitary of the age, and Lucas Cranach, an artist often described as Martin Luther's foremost propagandist. Thus, the story of this portrait brings together three titans of the Reformation whose inextricably entwined destinies shaped this period of European history.[...]

Never was Albrecht more prone to extravagance than when fashioning his own public image. In 1519, Albrecht Dürer received the extraordinary sum of 200 florins and 20 yards of damask to produce an engraving of the cardinal (fig. 1). By contrast, Dürer's contemporaries Bernard van Orley and Conrad Meit, respectively court painter and court sculptor to Margaret of Austria in Mechelen, earned the modest annual salary of 18 florins (G. Messling, ed., Cranach et son temps, Paris, 2011). Albrecht particularly favoured the 'historiated' portrait, the portrayal of a contemporary patron in the guise of a religious or mythological figure, which became increasingly popular during the Reformation. Albrecht had himself included in the guise of Erasmus, his personal saint, in The Meeting of Saint Erasmus and Saint Maurice painted by Matthias Grünewald (fig. 2).

There are four surviving portraits of Albrecht in the guise of Saint Jerome painted by Cranach, of which only the present picture remains in private hands. Two of these portraits depict the Cardinal as Saint Jerome in his study (1525, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt; and 1526, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; fig. 3) in a free adaptation of Dürer's celebrated print of 1514. We are grateful to Dr. Dieter Köpplin for confirming the dating of the present picture to c. 1527 (private communication, May 2013). In both this picture and another from the same year (now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), the saintly scholar, still immersed in his theological reflections, has been transported into a landscape. The verdant background, so carefully rendered in this picture, is, however, more reminiscent of the Saxon forest than the Syrian desert.

By the early 16th century, Saint Jerome had become the embodiment of the exemplary Christian scholar and a role model for humanists. His popularity among erudite circles had been heightened by the critical edition of his collected works that the greatest thinker of the age, Erasmus of Rotterdam, had published in 1516, the Sancti Hieronymi Stridonensis Opera Omnia. In portraying himself this way, the Cardinal was following an already established tradition of cardinals portrayed as Jerome. For example, Jan van Eyck's Saint Jerome in his study (Detroit Museum of Arts) is believed to be a historiated portrait of cardinal Niccolò Albergati.

As the official translator of the Bible into Latin, in its canonical version known as the Vulgate, Saint Jerome was regarded as the custodian of the Gospels' truth and integrity. Luther undertook his own translation of the Bible from Latin to vernacular German, which was first published in 1522, and was deemed invalid by Church authorities. One of his main principles was that every believer should be able to read the Bible without clerical mediation. By the time that this portrait was painted in the 1520s, Albrecht had also produced a translation of the Bible which was embraced by the Roman authorities. Thus by taking the guise of Saint Jerome, Albrecht emphasized his own role as a translator of the Scriptures (Tacke, 2007, op. cit., p. 87).

The tame lion looking out to the viewer is the traditional iconographical attribute of Saint Jerome. It became the saint's lifelong companion after Jerome removed a thorn from its injured paw. The stag is a common Christian symbol and its antlers are often associated with the wood of the Cross and the Resurrection. The younger stag or hind nearby, defenseless because of its lack of antlers, can be seen to represent the vulnerable Christ, at the mercy of humanity. A pair of partridges with their young in the foreground perhaps recall a legend in which partridges would steal eggs from the nests of other birds and then hatch them as their own. Jerome considered the partridge a despoiler of homes. Furthermore, in the writings of Saint Augustine, the partridge was likened to heretics, who adopt those they have not bred, a symbolism heavy with meaning in the context of Albrecht's ongoing struggle with the 'heretic' Luther and his growing number of followers. (For more on animal symbolism, see: H. Friedmann, 1980, op. cit., pp. 132, 288-4; C. Campbell, Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach's Adam and Eve, London, 2007, p. 76.) [...]

[Christie's, Auct. Cat. New York 2015, Sale 3707, Lot 117]

  • Albrecht of Brandenburg as St Jerome in a Landscape, about 1527

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