- Museum number
- 1896,0511.1
- Description
-
Head of a man wearing a hat; head and shoulders turned to half-right, wearing a wide-brimmed hat
Brush drawing in brown, grey, black and red wash, heightened with cream-white bodycolour; on light brown paper
- Production date
- 1510-1515 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 268 millimetres
-
Width: 187 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- This was acquired as an anonymous German sixteenth-century drawing and attributed to Cranach by Campbell Dodgson in 1921. In its frank portrayal of the sitter's features, it goes well with Cranach's painted portraits of the period 1510-15. A similar approach in the portrayal of features is clearly discernible in his ‘Portrait of a man with a fur hat and collar’, dated 1514, in Bremen (Kunsthalle, inv. no. 160; Friedländer-Rosenberg, pl. 62). There is also a marked affinity with the ‘Portrait of a man thought to have been the mayor of Weissenfels’, dated 1515, Berlin (Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 618A; Friedländer-Rosenberg, pl. 63). Other portrait drawings, executed with a similar freedom and spontaneity, are the head of a man, c.1520 in Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ. 4478) and a portrait study of a young man of c.1530 in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv.no. 92.GG.9; see 'Cranach der Ältere' exh.cat. edited by B. Brinkmann, Frankfurt and London, 2007, cat.nos. 81 and 82).
Text from Asahi Shimbun loan to Japan, 2003-4:
'Lucas Cranach came from Kronach, a few miles east of Coburg, and for most of his career worked for the Electors of Saxony, who were among the most powerful princes of the Holy Roman Empire, at their court in Wittenberg. He developed an elegant style of painting, particularly portraits, for his aristocratic patrons. He was also a prolific printmaker and played an important role in the publication of early reformation literature written by his friend Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) who was a professor of theology at the university founded at Wittenberg by the Elector Friedrich the Wise of Saxony. The natural spontaneity of the brushwork in this drawing contrasts well with the polished appearance of Cranach’s paintings. It shows his admirable skill as a portraitist, especially in his delicate use of watercolour to convey the varied textures of skin and hair. The sitter has not been identified, but the features bear some resemblance to a painting dated 1515 in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Portrait of a man, possibly the mayor of Weissenfels'
Lit. from J.Rowlands, 'Drawings by German Artists and Artists from German-speaking regions of Europe in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum: the Fifteenth Century, and the Sixteenth Century by Artists born before 1530', London, BM Press, 1993, no. 106: 'Parker, German Schools, p. 31, no. 33, repr.; Girshausen, pp. 69f., no. 41; Rosenberg, p. 28, no. 72, repr.; H. Zimmerman, Pantheon, xx, 1962, p. 9; BM Portrait Drawings, p. 7, no. 7; BM Dürer and Holbein, p. 169, no. 140, repr.'
Further lit: G.Heydenreich, 'Lucas Cranach the Elder: painting materials, technique and workshop practice', Amsterdam, 2007, p. 261; W. Schade in 'Cranach der Ältere' exh.cat. edited by B. Brinkmann, Frankfurt and London, 2007, p.93, fig.5
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1974 July-Dec, BM, Portrait Drawings, p.7
1984 BM, Master Drawings & Watercolours, no.56
1988 July-Oct, BM, Age of Dürer & Holbein, no.140
2003 Oct-Dec, Tokyo, Metropolitan Art Museum, Treasures of BM
2004 Jan-Mar, Kobe, City Museum, Treasures of BM
2004 April-Jun, Fukuoka, City Museum, Treasures of BM
2004 June-Aug, Niigata, Prefectural Mus of Fine Arts, Treasures of BM
2010/11 Oct-Jan, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lucas Cranach I
- Acquisition date
- 1896
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1896,0511.1