The name Lucas Cranach generally calls to mind sexy mythological paintings, ornate altar pieces, and lively woodcuts satirizing the Roman Catholic Church. Cranach's delicate, pregnant-looking nudes are sly as cats, and inhabit gardens painted to look as cozy as quilts. His satiric woodcuts echo the attacks that his friend Martin Luther made on Rome.
Cranach had another string to his bow: as one of Europe's best court painters, he had scores of portrait commissions from the 16th Century princes and princelings of northern Europe. Last week some of those early Protestant noblemen stared from the walls of a Manhattan gallery. Cranach's oil-on-paper...
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