What is Islamic Art

more sympathetic to the wife, and perhaps to Catholicism as well–as

suggested by the humanistic rendering of the nudes.^93 Lucas Cranach the

elder (1472–1553) dramatized a small, fully clothed version of the scene,

commissioned by thefirst Lutheran theologian Phillip Melanchthon, as the

last of the Ten Commandments published on a single chart (Haustafel)as

part of Luther’sLarge Catechism, published in Wittenberg in 1529.^94

Borrowing from Catholic iconography to ensure its legibility to laypeople,

the illustration served as a mnemonic device for chastity as a central tenet

of Lutheran faith.

Although the common treatment of the scene coincided with the cli-

mactic moment emphasized in some Islamic manuscript paintings, such as

Figure 13Lucas van Leyden,Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, engraving, 1512, 20 × 16 cm.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 31.31.31

(^93) Stewart, 2012. Some versions of this print have been altered so that the genitals are erased.
Compare Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden Inv. A 1920–67 with A2707, both from 1544;
Beyer, 2014 : 17.
(^94) Beyer, 2014 :18–19.
Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in Post-Reformation Europe 257