LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER
128 Study of a Stag
Three Goats
v
Brush and brown and red-brown wash and white
gouache heightening (recto); brush and black, gray, and
green wash, and black chalk (verso); H: 13.5 cm (5^5 /i 6
in.);W: 16. 6 cm (69/6 in.)
84.GC.36
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: None.
PROVENANCE: S. Rosenthal, Bern; L. V. Randall, Mon-
treal (sale, Sotheby's, London, July 6, 1967, lot 2); private
collection, New Jersey.
EXHIBITIONS: Five Centuries of Drawings, Montreal Mu-
seum of Fine Arts, October-November 1953, no. 101.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: T. L. Girshausen, Die Handzeichnungen
Lucas Cranachs des Alteren (Frankfurt am Main, 1936), p.
76 , no. 68a; J. Rosenberg, Die Zeichnungen Lucas Cranach
des Alteren (Berlin, 1960), pp. 26-27, no. 63.
SlNCE HIS EARLY MATURITY, CRANACH HAS BEEN
widely admired for his portrayal of animals.^1 This holds
true not only for the hunting pictures he made for the
Saxon court but also for religious and mythological
depictions. Perhaps most frequently included are stags,
both as victims of the hunt and as onlookers to scenes
such as Cranach's different versions of Adam and Eve.
Stags also serve as the principal motifs decorating the
lower borders of his drawings for the Prayer Book of
Emperor Maximilian (1515; Munich, Bayerische Staats-
bibliothek) and the title page of Luther's treatise Das diese
Wort Christi (Das ist mein Leib etce) nochfest stehen wider die
Schwermgeister, published in Wittemberg in 1527.
This is one of Cranach s few surviving studies of a
stag. It was first published by Girshausen (1936, p. 76,
no. 68a), who referred to the attribution by Schilling to
Cranach, though neither he nor Rosenberg (1960, p. 76)
offered much interpretive comment. The stag on the
Museum's recto is perhaps closest to one at the right of
Cranach's drawing Adam and Eve (formerly Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett; Ro-
senberg 1960, no. 39) in terms of the detailing of the eyes
and muzzle and shading of the face. Notable too is the
expressiveness of the eyes, a feature that recurs fre-
quently in Cranach's depictions of stags, as for example
in his Adam and Eve (Detroit Institute of Arts).^2
The Museum's drawing of a stag appears to have
been made rapidly with a brush. To judge by the verso,
Cranach began with a sketch in black chalk, which he
then went over with a brush in broad strokes, applying
varied washes freely. The rhythmic character of the
strokes indicating the fur and the painterly method ap-
parent throughout are characteristic of the artist's few
comparable animal studies (Rosenberg 1960, nos. 61 ,
64-70).
The verso, which was hidden by an old mount but
already noticed in the literature (Girshausen 1936, p. 76,
no. 68a), shows a goat grazing, with the head of another
at the right margin and a black chalk sketch of a third
peering outward above the neck of the fully represented
animal.^3 If anything, the verso was drawn with a still
more painterly technique than the recto. The relative
placement of the fully rendered goat and her companion
looking out from above her neck recurs in Cranach's
work in a painting, Adam and Eve, of 1526 (London,
Courtauld Institute Galleries),^4 and in his woodcut Deer
in the Forest, of 1541,^5 the latter noted by C. Andersson.^6
The lively manner of rendering the grass also recurs in
the woodcut. Lastly, there—as in the Museum's recto—
Cranach displays his tendency to show animals looking
expressively at the viewer. Given the fact that his datable
animal studies are from around 1530 and that compara-
tive material in other media by him falls into the period
from the mid-i52os to around 1540, a date in the early
15305 would appear most likely for the Museum s sheet.1. C. Andersson and C. Talbot, From a Mighty Fortress: Prints,
Drawings, and Books in the Age of Luther 1483-1546, exh. cat.,
Detroit Institute of Arts, 1983, p. 222.
2. M. J. Friedlander and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas
Cranach (Ithaca, 1978), no. 192.
3. The drawing was removed from its mount by Alexander
Yow following its purchase in 1984.- Friedlander and Rosenberg (note 2), no. 191.
5. K. G. Boon and R. W. Scheller, F. W.H. Hollstein, German
Engravings, Etchings, and Woodcuts ca. 1400-1700 (Amsterdam,
1959), vol. 6, no. 121. - Conversation with the author, Malibu, 1984.
284 GERMAN SCHOOL • CRANACH