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·Book: 20.4 × 15.4 × 0.8 cm (8 1/16 × 6 1/8 × 3/8 in.); Folio: 19.9 × 14.5 cm (7 7/8 × 5 3/4 in.)

<p>Lucas Cranach’s <em>Saint Simon</em>—naked, trussed upside-down, and partially sawed in half—depicts the apostle en route to his full dismemberment (which made possible his eventual distribution in relic form). Evidently well-received in the single-sheet 1512 Catholic series, here the woodblocks were reprinted to illustrate Martin Luther’s German translation of the Apostles’ Creed. Despite the illustrations’ gratuitously violent detail, the Protestant publisher’s dedication to his daughters referred to them as “fine and pleasing images.”</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1548
Medium: 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
Dimensions: Book: 20.4 × 15.4 × 0.8 cm (8 1/16 × 6 1/8 × 3/8 in.); Folio: 19.9 × 14.5 cm (7 7/8 × 5 3/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder

Artist

Lucas Cranach the Elder

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.

Kronach, Germany

Full artist profile →