The Crucifixion

Lucas Cranach, who became court painter to the Elector of Saxony in 1505, is generally known as the creator of delicate limbed female nudes, whose manneristic elegance imparts all of them with a family resemblance. This ease of recognition has brought the artist more popularity than esteem. However, Cranach’s earliest works (dating from the years following 1502) reveal an independence and vitality which reveal that he began his career as a highly gifted master. This print, the only known copy of the woodcut, is one of his earliest works and was created shortly before a similar depiction of the Crucifixion, which is dated 1502 and has been preserved in two copies (Berlin and New York) […].