Female Portrait in the Work of Lucas Cranach the Elder: Between Ideal and Individuality

Portraiture occupies an important place in the Lucas Cranach the Elder art. It is due to Cranach’s portraits that we have an idea of what many figures in the Reformation Era looked like. But along with male portraits, he often turned to those of women and children, which distinguished him from most artists of his time. During the Wittenberg period Cranach developed his own prominent style and beauty canon, widely replicated by the artists who worked at his studio. The images of women, appearing very similar at first glance, are particularly subordinated to this ideal of beauty. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the master approached the subject of female portraiture in a differentiated manner, with the degree of idealisation depending on the task assigned to the artist. When portraying politically or ideologically important figures, the artist largely abandoned idealisation, sometimes almost exaggerating facial features. The established idea of the female ideal in Cranach’s portraits often led to a false identification of the sitter. The most striking example is Sibylle of Cleves, the wife of the Elector of Saxony John Frederick the Magnanimous. Most of the images that used to be considered as portraits of Sibylle over the centuries are not the case. In fact, many of Cranach’s images of women are not portraits in the strict sense of the word. Using a number of women portrait paintings as examples, the article attempts to distinguish between the individualised and idealised images in Cranach’s art, and to reveal the principles that guided the master in his choice of one or the other approach.