Portrait of Duke Augustus of Saxony (1526-1586), half length, wearing a fur-trimmed coat and holding a letter; and Portrait of his wife, Anne of Denmark (b.1532), bust length, wearing a black dress with white sleeves and a gold necklace

Duke Augustus of Saxony was married to Anne of Denmark, daughter of King Charles II, on October 7, 1548 and subsequently succeeded his brother Maurice in 1553 as Elector Augustus. In addition to these bust length pendants dated 1549 of the newlyweds, Cranach II also depicted the couple full-length in a pair of portraits dated 1564 (Historisches Museum, Dresden). The Musée de la Ville, Rheims owns a portrait study of the Duke's head (Inv. no. 795.1.277) which Friedländer and Rosenberg (op. cit. 1978, p. 155, no. 718, Introduction, fig. 14) concluded dated to circa 1545, a few years earlier than the present paintings. In the present painting the Duke holds in his left hand a letter addressed to the painter, inscribed 'Dem erbaren unsernn - Lucas Malernn zu', while the inscriptions on Anne of Denmark's sleeves (ALS IN EREN) confirm her membership in the House of Saxony. In 1568 Augustus also commissioned from Lucas Cranach II a series of mural paintings of hunting scenes for which there are drawings in the Graphische Sammlung der Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig.

Although Dieter Koepplin raised the possibility that these paintings could be copies in the Cranach exhibition catalogue of 1976 (op. cit.), in a letter dated December 1, 1995, he states that he is no longer skeptical about the attribution. In addition, he reported that Dr. Werner Schade had personally examined the portraits and considered them fully autograph works signed by Lucas Cranach II.