In the Footsteps of Cranach - A Journey of Discovery

13
Cranach’s final years
Weimar
Weimar was Lucas Cranach’s final home. He lived
there in a house on the market square until his death in 1553.
His grave is in the Jakobsfriedhof cemetery.
After Duke Johann Friedrich I the Magnanimous
had lost the electoral dignity, Cranach followed him to the
new ducal seat of Weimar. Today, the collection of the Foundation
of Weimar Classics contains several of the artist’s
Section of the Cranach altar
in the Church of St Peter and
St Paul, completed in 1555 by
Lucas Cranach the Younger,
with portraits of Lucas Cranach
the Elder and Martin Luther
paintings, drawings and prints. Many of these originate from
the former ducal collection and attest to Cranach’s role as
court painter. The Cranach altar in the Church of St Peter
and St Paul represents an important visual testimony to
Reformation history in Thuringia. Alongside Martin Luther,
Cranach himself is immortalised on the three-panelled altar.