Portrait of Moritz Buchner

'Of the portraits done before 1520, those of Moritz Buchner and his wife Anna, born Lindacker, now acquired by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, have been acclaimed as particularly distinguished and well-preserved examples ever since they were introduced to a wider public in the exhibition of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen collection at the Frankfurt museum in 1928 [1]. After the dispersal of that collection they were acquired by Oscar F. Oppenheimer in Frankfurt and later they went to Switzerland whence they were brought to this country.Moritz Buchner was a merchant and alderman of Leipzig, member of a family which came from Eisleben (Luther's birthplace) and had gained wealth in the Thuringian mining industry [2]. A dignified and well-groomed man of the world, he gazes at the spectator with shrewd, appraising but not unkind eyes. Of the three rings on his left hand, one shows his coat of arms and the initials MB. The date 1518 and the artist's device of the winged serpent, adopted in 1508, appear on the left. In contrast to her husband, the dour-faced Anna Buchner, elaborately dressed and covered with jewelry, does not seek contact with the spectator. On the back of the man's portrait the combined arms of both families are painted.'

[1] The paintings were first mentioned in Eduard Flechig, Cranaschstudien, Leipzig 1900, p. 103 (wrong identification of the subjects). They are mentioned and reproduced in the following important monographs: Friedländer and Rosenberg, Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach, Berlin 1932, p. 50, pl, 108-109; H. Posse, Lucas Cranach d. "A"., Vienna 1942, pl. 47-48; Lucas Cranach der Ältere: Der Küstler und seine Zeit. Veröffentlichung der Deutschen Akademie der Küste, Berlin 1953, p. 52, pl. 56-57.

[2] For this information we are indebted to the Municipal Library in Leipzig.

[http://www.artsconnected.org/resource/1796/portrait-of-moritz-buchner] (accessed 21.05.2012)