Portrait of Moritz Buchner

Lucas Cranach the Elder

c. 1520

Oil on panel

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A man with curly red hair and a beard wears a black hat, a fur-lined red robe, and a gold ring with a blue stone. He is shown from the chest up against a dark background. These companion portraits have been identified as Moritz Büchner and his wife, Anna Lindacker Büchner. Moritz was a successful merchant and city alderman, part of the newly affluent middle class that emerged with the growth of capitalism in Germany in the 1500s. Lucas Cranach, the court artist to Frederick III of Saxony, was commissioned by the Büchners to paint their likenesses for posterity. Here, Cranach captures the confidence, pride, and ambition that often accompany newly acquired wealth and improved social status. The date of the painting appears with Cranach’s signature, a winged serpent, on the extreme left of Moritz’s port