A Faun and His Family with a Slain Lion

'The earliest painting by Cranach with the subject matter of the wild people or the fauns or the 'first humans' in accordance with Lukrez, whose medieval and ancient sources are cited in No. 497. The decorative neatness is comparable with the large painting of 'Venus and Cupid as the Honey Thief', (FR204k, now in London, National Gallery) from about 1526, which is perhaps the earliest painted version of the new Venus-Cupid subject (see No. 570, Fig. 321), comparable also with the colourful, stringent composition of the larger 'Fall of Man' dated 1526, FR 161 [Ruhmer 1963, Plate 22]. The undated painting of the same size of 'Apollo and Diana' in London (FR [222], 84 x 56.5 cm mentioned under No. 503) could be the pendant of our 'Family of Wild People' (similar rod-like trees, sky colouring and decorative character). The man sitting on the stone block placed at an angle is prefigured in woodcuts from 1523 and 1524: the humanist figure of Sophrosyne (No. 251, Fig. 204) and the armed warrior Joshua (No. 227, fig. 304; Ho. H. 5a) – both iconographically not far apart from the notion of the wild people, their battle and their humanist allegory.

The seated man has slightly pointed ears, which befits a faun or a 'silvanus' (fauns otherwise usually appear with horns or hooves, similar to satyrs, that have a tail). A similar figure, also armed with a club, 'protects' in the form of a fountain figure the reclining nymph in Cranach's painting from 1518 (FR 100); banned to the fountain sculpture the faun-like figure with pointed ears is prevented from bothering the nymph, as is otherwise the case (Fig. 238). See the introduction to 10. Subject Matter Group with the 'Wild People' above for the evolution of the subject from late Medieval graphic art like No. 494 and from Cranach's 'bound' representations of the faun or the wild people in book illustrations 1521/23 (p. 324 descriptive title page no. 218, fig. 302, and title page No. 233f., Figs. 187f.) and the large woodcut portrait of Christian of Denmark from 1523 (No. 160, fig. 114; see also the title page used in Cranach circles in Wittenberg from 1529: J. Luther, Plate 48), and p. 211 and 430. The defeated lion already appears in the portrait woodcut from 1523: embedded within the columns (early forms of this defeated lion are found in accordance with ancient tradition on the plinths of numerous reliquaries, which were represented in woodcuts by Cranach in the Wittenberg Prayer book (Heiligtumsbuch) in 1509, No. 95-100: Ho. 96/Schu. 13, 40, 45, 46, 64, 104, 107, 110). The contemplative mood after the act and before the future destiny of these 'primatives' recalls a painting attributed to Fra Bartolommeo (Florence 1472-1517) showing Adam and Eve after the expulsion from paradise: Adam seated naked on a stone, his hand supported on his heel, Eve striding before him with her two small children, one in her arms the other holding her hand (Museum of Philadelphia, John G. Johnson Collection; The Burlington Magazine, XLIV, 1924, Fig. beside p. 113). The contemplative mood incited by the Cranach painting is enhanced by the evening (or morning) sky tones (as is described in No. 290 and which also appear in No. 501, and Nos. 93, 286, 288, 333, 387, 388, 471, 476, 478, 523, 547, 574, 574a, 582, 618; always indicating something uncanny, early and iconographically particularly insightful in the painting of a 'Reclining Nymph' keenly guarded by a faun, dated 1518, FR 100; Cranach-Fs. 1953, Fig. 100; Schade 1974, Plate 97; with regards the yellowish colouring above the horizon of Cranach's paintings see comments under No. 594).'

[Koepplin, Falk, Exhib. Cat. Basel 1974-1976, 600-601]