GRAND AUCTION OF OLD MASTERS, COLONIAL ART AND VINTAGE WATCHES
Lot 553:
Pair of oil paintings on board, each framed measurement: 65 x 25 cm. Cranach, 1472-Weimar, 1553). German painter and printmaker. There are no certainties about the beginnings or training of this artist, of whom we do not know any certain works until his arrival in Vienna between 1501 and 1508. In 1508 he was granted a coat of arms, a winged serpent that would become the signature staff for his works. In various writings he was acclaimed by his humanist friends, who compared him to the painters of Antiquity, comparing him to Apelles, Parrhasius or Zeuxis. In 1508 he made a diplomatic trip to Holland, and was even appointed burgomaster of Wittenberg on three occasions between 1534 and 1540. His economic situation was also prosperous, since his earnings as a courtier and independent painter were added to the Prado Museum. Five works by Lucas Cranach are preserved. Three of them come from the royal collections and form a series about the Hunt in honor of Charles V at Torgau Castle. Two appear signed in 1544 and 1545, while the third is a copy. One of the tables was among the goods that Mary of Hungary brought to Spain in 1556, while the other is cited in the possession of Charles V in 1545. In 1636 they were in the Alcázar of Madrid, while in 1746 they were located in the palace of La Granja. There are two more of these tables in Vienna and another in Stockholm. In 1988 the Prado acquired another work by Cranach: the panel Virgin with the Child Jesus, Saint John and Angels, signed in 1536, which belonged to the collection of the Duchess of Valencia. Furthermore, in 2001 the Prado acquired the panel that was initially considered a Portrait of a Gentleman and which today is known to be, without a doubt, the Portrait of John Frederick the Magnanimous. Provenance: important family saga of collectors, Barcelona, Spain.
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