Portrait of the Elector John the Steadfast of Saxony (1468-1532)

In 1532 the elector of Saxony, John I (‘The Steadfast’), died, and his son John Frederick I (‘The Magnanimous’) took over the electorate. The occasion was marked by Johan Frederik’s commission of a whole series of portraits of the three electors, Frederick III (‘The Wise’) and the heirs to the throne named above by the German painter Lucas Cranach. The paintings were furnished with printed poems of homage pasted on the front under the portraits. On this portrait of John the Steadfast, however, the printed poem has ended up on the back, and it also looks as if the poems got mixed up, because this one pays homage to Frederick the Wise not John the Steadfast. The many portraits with poems from Cranach’s atelier functioned as political propaganda for the electoral dynasty, and thereby also as Protestant propaganda against the Pope in Rome. John Frederick gave the paintings as gifts to his allies.