Head of a peasant

Cranach's authorship was not disputed until the appearance of a very similar drawing, said to have originally been in an album from Wittenberg the contents of which had been assembled in 1590-3, raised the issue of how the sheets were connected with each other. The related sheet was acquired by the Kupferstichkabinett, Basel, in 1937 [Basel ID]. Since then, opinions have been divided about the relationship between the two. Girshausen and Rosenberg, supported by Rowlands in 1993, considered the London drawing to be the original and that at Basel a copy of it. Koepplin's opinion that the Basel sheet is the original (the two were exhibited side by side in the Cranach exhibition in Basel in 1974) is re-iterated by Falk in the 'Burlington Magazine', May, 1995, p.325. [...] The Basel sheet can be dated c.1525 on the basis of the watermark. [The version in the BM] is a more detailed, carefully delineated portrayal with many more small brushstrokes in the hat, beard and hair, than both the Basel sheet, or Cranach's 'Head of a man wearing a hat' in the BM (1896,0511.1; Rowlands 107) both of which were drawn with greater spontaneity and freedom. This difference in technique suggests that the present sheet was drawn by an artist of the next generation, such as Cranach's very able son, Lucas Cranach the Younger. However, it should be noted that the artist must have used an old stock of paper, because the watermark in this sheet shows a bull's head watermark similar to one dated by Piccard 1509-1519 (cf Piccard, xii, 793) which is earlier in date to the watermark in the Basel sheet.

[BM online, accessed 20.06.2025]