Portrait of Martin Luther (Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1564)
Portrait of Martin Luther is a 1564 oil on canvas painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger and studio, in St. Elizabeth's Church, Wrocław before World War Two and now in the National Museum, Warsaw. It is based on Lucas Cranach the Elder's three-quarter length 1539 portrait of Martin Luther.
The subject holds a black-bound Bible and is dressed in everyday clothes and without unnecessary decoration, fitting the conventions of bourgeois portraiture of the time. In the top right hand corner is the Cranach coat of arms and the date 1564. At the bottom is a Latin inscription:Diptychs
The work is a pendant to a portrait of Philip Melanchthon, also now in the National Museum, Warsaw. Such a diptych was a popular product of the Cranach studio, commissioned to decorate private homes or churches.
