Portrait of a Man

Painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1522, this oil-on-panel portrait has an early ownership history placing it with Dr. Friedrich Campe of Nuremberg by 1844, then passing by inheritance to Bernhard von Lindenau in Altenburg and subsequently to his niece, Mrs. von Watzdorf-Bachoff. It later entered the collection of Paul Cassirer in Berlin (by 1921), was held by the von der Heydt family, and came into the possession of August and Serena Lederer in Vienna before 1932. Sold in 1954 to Rosenberg & Stiebel, it was acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in January 1954 and given to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in 1959, where it remains as part of the Samuel H. Kress Collection.

Lucas Cranach the Elder painted Portrait of a Man in 1522, an oil on panel work classified as a Renaissance portrait. The painting entered the Samuel H. Kress Collection and has been displayed at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Early scholarship noted its possible ownership by Dr. Friedrich Campe, a Nuremberg dealer, and linked it to Cranach's courtly portraiture tradition, as discussed in a 1995 National Gallery of Art catalogue entry. Joseph Heller's 1844 study further contextualizes the work within the artist's prolific portrait production.

Contemporary scholarship views the piece as an exemplar of Northern Renaissance portraiture, reflecting both the sitter's status and Cranach's stylistic development.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, a prominent German Renaissance painter and printmaker, created Portrait of a Man in 1522. Executed in oil on panel, this painting exemplifies Cranach's approach to portraiture during a period of significant cultural and religious change in Northern Europe. The artwork captures an unidentified male figure, rendered with a directness characteristic of the artist's style.