Cranach

8 March—8 June 2008

In The Sackler Wing of Galleries, Burlington House

Ticketing information

The Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major exhibition in Britain devoted to Lucas Cranach the Elder (c.1472–1553).

A collaboration between the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main and the Royal Academy, the exhibition brings together some 70 works chosen to represent the quality and range of this important master.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Venus, 1532. Oil and tempera on red beechwood, 37.7 x 24.5 cm Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

As the leading member of a German family of artists, Lucas Cranach was a painter, printmaker and book illustrator with a distinctly individual manner and a highly successful business. He was one of the most versatile artists of the Renaissance, court artist to the Saxon electors, a staunch supporter of the Reformation, and a close friend of Martin Luther. During the course of his long career, Cranach created striking portraits and expressive devotional works, propaganda for the Protestant cause, as well as his own brand of erotic female nude and inventive treatments of biblical, mythological and classical subjects.

The Städel has generously made available to the Academy its remarkable collection of paintings, drawings and prints by Cranach; foremost among the works it has lent is The Altarpiece of the Holy Kinship, dated 1509.

Further information

Read extracts from the exhibition catalogue and RA Magazine:

• The art of being a court painter
• The pictorial world of the Protestants
• The flowering of the nude

Education Guide
Learn more with An Introduction to the Exhibition for teachers and secondary students.
Click here to download An Introduction to the Exhibition (1.0 MB)

Please note
On Wednesday 4 June the Royal Academy will close to the public at 1pm.

• Royal Academy of Arts