(circa 1500 - active in Schneeberg between 1528–1561)
The Holy Kinship,
oil on panel, 42.5 x 43.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Galerie Castendijk, Rotterdam, 1966;
Private collection, Belgium

The present painting is based on a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder from circa 1509. While drawing upon its motif, Krodel adds elements not present in his master’s composition, such as the lacing and brocade pattern, both of which can be assigned to the stylistic repertoire employed during Cranach’s period around 1525. It is thus a composition executed in the workshop in the years around 1525 by a painter who had access to the Cranach workshop’s contemporary style templates, but did not yet master the specific work processes and techniques. This suggests the work of a gifted pupil, which speaks in favour of Wolfgang Krodel, whose first works can be dated to the year 1528.

A direct comparison of the present painting with Krodel’s composition of Lot and His Daughters, which is signed with the monogram ‘WK’ (see digital Cranach catalogue raisonné, CorpusCranach.de, no. CC-BAT-030-010), shows strong similarities in the forms of the hands and earlaps, despite the greater technical precision of the later work, and the brocade pattern which can likewise be found in this work. The present painting may constitute the earliest known work from Wolfgang Krodel’s apprenticeship. At the same time, it proves the hypothesis voiced in the past that Krodel was a student of Cranach’s.

We are grateful to Michael Hofbauer, Heidelberg, for his kind assistance in cataloguing the present painting. It is registered in the digital Cranach catalogue raisonné under no. CC-CMS-700-005.

Technical analysis:

The original panel of the present painting has been thinned and applied to a new thin wooden board. The composition was accurately drawn before colouring. IR images show a distinctive under-drawing made with a small brush, characterised by marked contours and strong hatching. This hatched drawing wraps the volumes of some figures to create shadows, on the Christ Child and on Saint Elisabeth, whose red cloth was accurately drawn before painting. The tiles of the floor were also traced and are clearly visible by IR reflectogram. No significant changes between the under-drawing and the painted version are discernible.

Regarding the use of the pigments, spectroscopic exams detect azurite as the only blue used in the painting, verdigris in the green areas, sometimes mixed with lead-based yellow in the lighter leaves of the trees, lead white, lead-tin yellow in the yellow details such as the hair, a carmine-type red lake in Saint Elizabeth’s dress and vermillion in brighter reds.

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical examination of the present painting.