
Saint Matthias, from The Martyrdom of the Apostles
<p>Lucas Cranach designed his <em>Martyrdom of the Twelve Apostles</em> series in 1512. This clear and crisp impression of the impending decapitation of Saint Matthias derives from that early printing. The block was reprinted around 1548, with letterpress text on the back, to illustrate Martin Luther’s German translation of the Apostle’s Creed. Despite the series’ violent subject matter, the Protestant publisher of the c. 1548 edition dedicated the book to his daughters and referred to the images as “fine and pleasing.”</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1507
- Dimensions
- Image/block/sheet: 16.2 × 12.6 cm (6 7/16 × 5 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
Artist

Painting
Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm. He was a close friend of Martin Luther, and eleven portraits of that reformer by him survive. Cranach also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued to paint nude subjects from mythology and religion throughout his career.
Full artist profile →More
More by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Venus with Cupid the Honey Thief
1575 · Oil on oak panel
The Apostles' Creed (Das Symbolum der Heiligen Aposteln)
1548 · Book with fifteen woodcuts with letterpress in black on cream laid paper, in eighteenth-century full brown sheepskin, sewn on raised bands, with gold tooled decoration on inner-edges of boards, blind lines and gold titling on the spine, hand-sewn silk headbands, marbled endsheets, and a purple silk page marker
The Crucifixion
1538 · Oil on panel
The Nymph of the Spring
1537 · oil on panel
The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion
1536 · oil on panel
Madonna and Child
1535 · oil on panel
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Year
- 1507
- Dimensions
- Image/block/sheet: 16.2 × 12.6 cm (6 7/16 × 5 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1507-102353
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





