Marriage Portrait of Martin Luther and Katharina of Bora (1525 – 1526)

At the latest by 13 June 1525, the date of Martin Luther’s engagement to Katharina of Bora, a large number of double portraits[1] were produced in the Cranach workshop, representing the couple in different picture formats.[2] Luther is depicted bareheaded in a black gown with a stiff collar against a blue or green background. His gaze, which is turned to the right, establishes a relationship with the portrait of Katharina of Bora conceived as its companion piece. Her black dress with its stiff collar harmonizes with the garment of her companion. A net trimmed with brocade covers her brown hair. Unlike Luther she fixes her gaze on the viewer. As was traditional for marriage portraits Bora occupies the right-hand (heraldic left) side (fig. 1, 2 and 3).

Function

Portraits of married couples and families fulfilled a representative function by displaying the sitter’s rank and social status. They documented family and social affiliations and moreover also served as ‘memoria’. The aristocratic practice of commissioning series of genealogical portraits and having ancestral portrait galleries was also introduced to bourgeois circles by the late Middle Ages. Portraits were exchanged and gifted, providing both identity and community. In addition to engagements and weddings, births, deaths and changes of status were also customary occasions for portraiture.

Not only did the mass-produced marriage portraits of Martin Luther and Katharina of Bora have the function of documenting their relationship, but it evidently also had an exemplary role, which according to early modern conviction was intrinsic to portraits.[3] It presented the reformer in new private and public contexts and was designed to prompt the viewer to imitate the exemplary Christian way of life embodied by him. Alongside emperors and dukes, Luther and Katharina decorated the living quarters for example of the Nuremberg family Scheurl and were received in effigie into the family as role models.[4]  

Historical Context

In his text on marriage from 1522[5] Luther not only publicly expressed himself in favour of a revaluation of marriage as opposed to celibacy, but also from 1523 actively supported the marriage of priests (as for example in the case of the lay preacher, Wenzelaus Linck from Altenburg, whose wedding he attended in 1523).[6] Therefore by the end of 1524 Luther was publicly urged to marry but he initially rejected the idea with reference to the work of the Antichrist and his expected martyrdom.[7] It wasn’t until early summer that Luther became increasingly convinced that marriage was required of him in obedience to God‘s commandment and as a sign of his opposition to the clerics whose stance was inimical to God.[8]

In an open letter to Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, only a few days before his own marriage, he claimed that the cause of the Peasant War was a hatred of the clergy and advised him to marry so that ‘the reasons for indignation would be taken from Satan’.[9] Luther’s friends and companions criticized this surprising turnaround, because they felt it to be an inappropriate moment, saw Luther as a victim of his own sensuality or did not consider Katharina of Bora to be the right candidate.[10]

Bora had been among those nuns, who had fled from the Nimbschen Convent to Wittenberg, where Luther sought to accommodate or marry off those who could not return home.[11] As no suitable husband could be found for Katharina of Bora she initially lived and worked in the household of Lucas Cranach the Elder,[12] until Luther became engaged to her on 13. June 1525 in the presence of a small circle of friends, including Cranach, his wife, Justus Jonas, Bugenhagen, as the local pastor and the lawyer, Johann Apel who was also married to a nun.[13] However Cranach and his wife were not among to guests who attended the church wedding ceremony and meal that took place with considerable expense on the 27 June.[14]

News of Luther’s engagement spread quickly to the public via the correspondence between the Wittenberg reformers – not least because late medieval perception viewed the marriage of a monk and a nun as an apocalyptical sign.[15] Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg sent Luther a wedding gift of twenty gold guilders.[16] The Cranach workshop and its numerous employees appear to have satisfied the wide public interest in Luther’s marriage by producing a large number of double portraits.[17] Of these 13 portrait pairs are known today and numerous single portraits, for which companion pieces would presumably have originally existed (III.M1–III.M19).[18] As the marriage was quite a surprise, even for Luther’s closely trusted friends, it may be assumed that the first portraits didn’t leave the workshop until the middle of the year. The very traditional type of the marriage portrait chosen by Cranach served an important function as witness to the marriage and as role model for a Christian way of life, but more significantly it placed the marriage, which according to canon law was illegitimate, within an existing pictorial tradition. This conventional model, which was certainly easy to reproduce, was executed for the most part on small transportable panels, but without neglecting more representative formats.

In view of this it is not surprising that Luther’s opponents also reacted to the portraits. The Dominican prior of Magdeburg Johannes Mensing challenged the circulation and the veneration of portraits of Luther and his wife and complained that ‘[…] the picture of the one against Christ/Luther with his runaway nun/they [Luther’s followers] put it instead [rather than an image of Christ] in their houses and bedrooms’[19] An invective written by Johannes Fabri, the humanist and later Bishop of Vienna in 1528 attacks the priests’ marriages of the reformers. In it he condemns the fact that ‘Luther, Zwingli and Oecolampad took, as wives rich, beautiful women / they make their way in with golden chains/rings/and silk dresses/like countesses’. Then Fabri addresses Luther directly by continuing: ‘[…] how one had to portray your runaway nun in a silk dress / and golden bonnet / on your wedding day/’.[20]

Observations on the painting process

The surviving portraits from this group are panel paintings that were produced between 1525 and 1526 (fig. 4).[1] These can be divided into three subgroups according to their size and format. The earliest of these are the small round portraits dated 1525 and with a diameter of about 13.5 cm (III.M1–III.M6).[2] The upright rectangular versions have survived in a smaller variant against a blue background (III.M11–III.M19) and a larger variant against a green background (III.M.7–III.M10). Both the image and the format of the latter are about twice the size.[3] The portrait on the smaller upright format is about the same size as that of the round panels with one exception.[4] All the portraits from this group were executed on beech panels.[5]

The round portraits (III.M1–III.M6) transferred the format and conventions of representation known from portrait medallions to the medium of paint. This genre was extremely popular in 16th century humanist circles, not least because of its origins in antiquity.[1] By satisfying this demand with painted portraits Cranach adopts a portrait type that is new for the German-speaking world.[2] Both the reference to the commemorative role of the medallion and the innovative shape of the painting suggest it may have been designed to ennoble Luther and Bora.[3] The small format also facilitated speedy production and ease of transportation. The composition of the frame that was probably turned and consisted of interlocking parts was of benefit for this purpose. The round panels that were c. 4 mm thick and finely finished on the reverse could thus be joined together to form a closed ‘capsule’ which protected the portraits (fig. 5a and b).[4]

The small upright rectangular beech panels of a standard size (III.M11–III.M19) also exhibit a uniform thickness of about 4 mm and are carefully smoothed on the reverse as well. Gilded frame members were glued to the edges of the panel and both panels of a diptych were probably originally hinged together, allowing them to be opened and closed like a book.[1] In this respect they are in keeping with the hinged marriage diptychs that had become increasingly popular in 16th bourgeois circles. These could be opened and displayed as family documents on special occasions. The hinge made it possible for them to be stored closed and also facilitated transport or dispatch of the panels, which would in turn have expanded the target group of customers. A uniform dark brown to black coating was applied to the reverse and the exterior of the frames and the panels do not exhibit any of the decorative elements typical of double portraits at this time.[2] The omission of these painted elements on the reverse certainly permitted a quicker and cheaper production of the portraits, but could also be interpreted as evidence that they were displayed on a wall (fig. 7).[3]

The larger format panels (III.M7 to II.M10) are painted on thicker boards averaging about 1 cm thick and finished in various ways on the reverse. Whereas the reverse of the Bristol work (III.M7), dated to 1525, is grooved on all four sides and only smoothed to a certain extent, and so is similar to the treatment of the earlier ‘Junker Jörg’ portraits, the panels of the Stockholm double portrait (III.M9), dated to 1526 are bevelled all round to a thickness of 5 mm and so exhibit similarities with the panels from Portrait Group IV (Luther as a Married Man with Gown and Cap), that were produced after 1528. The different finishes on the reverse can probably be associated with the increased serial production and the rationalization of the production process: whereas in the Middle Ages traditionally the carpenter produced the frame and panel as a unit with a ground application, Cranach abandoned this approach, increasingly using panels of standardized formats that were then framed after completion of the painting.[4] 

Although the consistently thin lines of the underdrawing within the Portrait Group vary considerably in detail according to the format of the painting it can be assumed that the facial contours of all three formats were transferred with the assistance of a template.[1] The portrait could thus be reproduced in different sizes. The fact that the facial contours match when scaled suggests that the same portrait drawing was employed on different- sized templates to transfer the design (fig. 8).[2]

A very minor deviation in scale among the small upright rectangular formats is discernible (III.M11–III.M19) (fig. 9). Whereas some examples correspond exactly in size with the depiction of the round portraits,[1] others are slightly larger and match each other (fig. 10).[2] This suggests the use of two templates of slightly different scales within the portrait series.[3] As a matter of interest the examples with the larger depictions are not signed and dated in the top left-hand corner like the smaller versions, but rather above Luther’s right shoulder. The ‘2‘ in the year is more z-shaped compared with the rounded form found on the smaller versions (fig. 11a and b).[4] The collar of the coat is more precisely worked up in the panels with the larger representation, the hair more voluminous and curly, the facial features more clear-cut. The differences evident from the underdrawing through to the signature suggest that in 1525 at least two painters were responsible for the execution of this portrait series. The paintings of higher quality can be associated with other works that current research unanimously attributes to Lucas Cranach the Elder. Similarities within this group also suggest that both artists executed the portraits each time from the underdrawing to the signature rather than each completing – with the aim of standardization – one stage across all the portraits in the series.[5]