CRANACH, Lucas the Elder
(b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar)

Portrait of Margaretha Luther (detail)

1527
Oil and tempera on red beechwood
Wartburg-Stiftung, Eisenach

Martin Luther's mother shows the strain of having raised nine children, but she seems comfortable with herself and presents a dignified, more relaxed pendant to Albrecht Dürer's expressive 1514 charcoal drawing of his sick mother.