Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain

The Crucifixion

Lucas Cranach the Elder · 1538

Provenance

Ownership history

Sir Fairfax Cartright (d. 1928), Aynho Park, Banbury [according to letter from Robert Langton Douglas to Charles Worces-ter, Nov. 25, 1928, in curatorial file]. Julius Böhler, Munich, 1928 [according to receipt and other records in the registrar’s office.]; sold to Charles H. Worcester, Chicago, Sept. 1928; on loan to the AIC from 1928; given to the AIC, 1947.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

New York, Kleinberger, Loan Exhibition of German Primitives for the Benefit of the American Red Cross, 1928, no. 28.
Art Institute of Chicago, Loan Exhibition of Old Masters, 1928–29 (no cat.).
New York, Van Die-men Galleries, Exhibition of Paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), 1929, no. 12.
Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Loan Exhibition of Religious Art from the Fourth Century to the Present Time, 1930, no. 34.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1933, no. 13.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1934, no. 11.
Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpieces of Religious Art, 1954, pp. 22–23.

Literature

Harry Adsit Bull, Jr., “Seen in the Galleries,” International Studio 91, 379 (1928), pp. 65 (ill.), 78.
“Early German Paintings at Kleinberger’s,” Art News 27, 5 (1928), p. 14 (ill.).
Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., “An Exhibition of German Primitives,” Arts 14 (1928), pp. 309–10 (ill.).
D[aniel] C[atton] R[ich], “A Crucifixion by Lucas Cranach the Elder,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 23 (1929), pp. 6–7 (ill.).
Frank E. Washburn Freund, “Ausstellung altdeutscher Malerei in den F. Kleinberger Galleries zu New York,” Belvedere 8 (1929), p. 285.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection, 1932, p. 191.
Max J. Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg, Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach, Berlin, 1932,, p. 85, no. 302, fig. 302; rev. Eng. ed., 1978, pp. 144–45, no. 377, fig. 377.
Charles L. Kuhn, A Catalogue of German Paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in American Collections, Cambridge, Mass., 1936, pp. 39–40, no. 108.
Daniel Catton Rich, ed., Catalogue of the Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection of Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Chicago, 1938, p. 39, no. 34, pl. 36.
Oskar Thulin, Cranach-Altäre der Reforma-tion, Berlin, 1955, pp. 36–46.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, pp. 109–10, 150 (ill.).
A. Schacher, “Crucifixion (in Art),” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, Washington, D.C., 1967, p. 494, fig. 17.

Comparables