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拍品专文
Around a dozen representations of Charity by Cranach and his workshop are known. Dating from 1529 onwards, the theme focused on the image of maternal love and the strength of the mother figure as she tends to the needs of others, with the number of children typically at three, but varying across versions from one to seven. Dieter Koepplin has argued that these paintings should be read in connection to Martin Luther’s reinterpretation of the concept of Charity as love arising from faith in the grace of God, which should naturally extend to loving one’s neighbours. He notes that the setting beneath an apple tree was also indebted to Luther, who in 1533 compared the Bible to a fruit tree and its fruits as gifts of God (see D. Koepplin, 'Cranach's Paintings of Charity in the Theological and Humanist Spirit of Luther and Melanchthon', Cranach, exhibition catalogue, London 2007, pp. 65-68). While the message is a virtuous one, the subject once again gave Cranach the opportunity to depict the female nude in a Christian moralising context.
As was customary in Cranach’s workshop, no two treatments of the subject were the same. The present unique composition is the largest known iteration of the subject in the Cranach corpus. Featuring four children, it relates closely to a smaller picture in Nivågård’s Malerisamling, Nivå, dated 1535, in which the mother’s legs are similarly positioned (fig. 1). The figure is also directly comparable with the version, on approximately the same scale, in Weimar (Klassik Stiftung Weimar, inv. no. G20). Although the present work is less well preserved than these museum examples, and consequently more difficult to judge (with the paint surface having suffered a degree of abrasion), it is no less ambitious. On stylistic grounds, a date in the late 1530s or early '40s is most likely and is in line with the configuration of the signature, with the device of a serpent with folded wings, which was used from 1537 onwards, coinciding with the premature death of Cranach’s son Hans. Furthermore, the transparent veil worn over the mother’s head (still clearly discernible), is a motif not seen in Cranach before 1535.
The primacy of this version is further attested to by infrared reflectography, which reveals the artist’s lively, carbon-based underdrawing (Tager Stonor Richardson, 8 December 2022, available upon request). The high level of planning, with clear reserves used for the compositional elements and loosely drawn contours of the bodies, are typical of Cranach’s technique. Dieter Koepplin, to whom we are grateful, on the basis of photographs considers the work ‘entweder für eine kopie nach Caranch oder (wahrschinlicher) fur ein erk von Lucas Cranach dem Älteren, das von einem Restaurator total überarbeitet ist’ (‘either a copy after Cranach or (more likely) a work by Lucas Cranach the Elder, totally reworked by a restorer’; private communication, 30 March 2023).
As was customary in Cranach’s workshop, no two treatments of the subject were the same. The present unique composition is the largest known iteration of the subject in the Cranach corpus. Featuring four children, it relates closely to a smaller picture in Nivågård’s Malerisamling, Nivå, dated 1535, in which the mother’s legs are similarly positioned (fig. 1). The figure is also directly comparable with the version, on approximately the same scale, in Weimar (Klassik Stiftung Weimar, inv. no. G20). Although the present work is less well preserved than these museum examples, and consequently more difficult to judge (with the paint surface having suffered a degree of abrasion), it is no less ambitious. On stylistic grounds, a date in the late 1530s or early '40s is most likely and is in line with the configuration of the signature, with the device of a serpent with folded wings, which was used from 1537 onwards, coinciding with the premature death of Cranach’s son Hans. Furthermore, the transparent veil worn over the mother’s head (still clearly discernible), is a motif not seen in Cranach before 1535.
The primacy of this version is further attested to by infrared reflectography, which reveals the artist’s lively, carbon-based underdrawing (Tager Stonor Richardson, 8 December 2022, available upon request). The high level of planning, with clear reserves used for the compositional elements and loosely drawn contours of the bodies, are typical of Cranach’s technique. Dieter Koepplin, to whom we are grateful, on the basis of photographs considers the work ‘entweder für eine kopie nach Caranch oder (wahrschinlicher) fur ein erk von Lucas Cranach dem Älteren, das von einem Restaurator total überarbeitet ist’ (‘either a copy after Cranach or (more likely) a work by Lucas Cranach the Elder, totally reworked by a restorer’; private communication, 30 March 2023).