Lucretia

To date less than a dozen works are known, all circular in format and of much the same size (15 cms in diameter). Six, such as the present panel, are of religious, historical or mythological subjects, and the remainder are portraits. The former group consist of a Salome and two attendants with the head of the Baptist [DE_SRU_GR1-691], a Virgin and Child in the Schlossmuseum in Berchtesgaden [DE_BstGS-SB_WAFBI31], an Adam and Eve (present whereabouts unknown), a Reclining nymph in the Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg in Coburg [DE_KSVC_M161], the present Lucretia, and a Venus and Cupid [US_MMANY_1982-60-48]. Three of these, the Virgin and Child, the Adam and Eve and the Reclining nymph are signed and dated 1525, while the present Lucretia and the Venus and Cupid are both signed with the artist’s serpent device, but not dated. The strong stylistic similarities between all the works suggest that they were all painted at the same time or within a short space of time from each other, most probably around 1525-27. Four of the set, including the present work, share Cranach’s predilection for the treatment of the human nude. Certainly at least three of the panels, the Venus and Cupid, the Reclining nymph and the present panel all share the same physical appearance of the panels themselves, each made of beechwood with their curiously rough hewn and undecorated borders.

[...] The original sources and intended function of this and the other roundels in this group are not known for certain, but it is highly probable that they were originally intended for display in a personal cabinet or Kunstkammer. All of them may have been painted in response to a single commission, but unfortunately too little is known of the early history of these paintings to allow us to know for certain whether the latter is true; only the Virgin and Child, recorded in the possession of the Von Stein family as early as 1549, has any early provenance4. It is also possible, of course, that Cranach may have intended them for individual or collective sale, or was simply experimenting with a new format. Certainly works such as this, most notably the portraits, seem to have been among the earliest German paintings to adapt the format of Renaissance medals or plaquettes.

[Sotheby's online database; http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/old-master-british-paintings-evening-l13036/lot.3.html?locale=en; accessed 20-03-2019]