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拍品专文
This richly colored painting, despite its fragmentary state, captures the reverential drama surrounding one of the final miracles of Christ’s ministry, the Raising of Lazarus. As recounted in John 11:1, Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary Magdalene, became gravely ill in the village of Bethany, near Jerusalem. Word was sent to Jesus, but by the time he arrived, Lazarus had died and his body was sealed in a cave. Martha met Jesus on the road to tell him of her brother's fate, and was later joined by her sister, who knelt and wept at the Savior's feet. Leading them, along with other Jews from the village, to Lazarus's tomb, Christ announced that they would witness a miracle revealing that he had been sent by God, his father. After the tomb was unsealed, Christ called to Lazarus who came out, still wrapped in his grave cloths but newly returned to life.
Though no completely autograph painting of this subject by Lucas Cranach the Elder survives, it must have been one that he treated as a few examples by Lucas Cranach the Younger and other contemporaries associated with his father’s workshop are known. These include the upright panel of around 1535 by Cranach the Elder’s workshop (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. no. Gal.-Nr. 1934), the 1558 Epitaph of Michael Meyenburg by Lucas Cranach the Younger (formerly Evangelische Kirchengemeinde St. Blasii, Nordhausen), as well as a painting in a private collection attributed to the Master of the Pflock Altarpiece (sold Koller, Zurich, 19 September 2014, lot 3014). In all of these, Christ makes an similar gesture with his hands while he stands over Lazarus’s open tomb. In the present painting, some of the Apostles and a throng of onlookers stand behind Christ, conversing among themselves with expressions of stupefied awe as they witness this divine act, which by Cranach’s day was viewed as a prefiguration of Christ’s own Resurrection. A young man in red, perhaps John the Evangelist, holds a book while pointing to his left, underscoring that Lazarus will now once again be able to leave his tomb and walk among the living. The white and blue drapery seen at lower left in front of Christ likely corresponds to the shoulder and sleeve of one of his Apostles, who kneels above Lazarus’s tomb to help him rise to his feet.
At the time of this painting's sale in Paris, 2022, Dr. Dieter Koepplin confirmed its attribution to Lucas Cranach the Younger on the basis of photographs. We are grateful to Gunnar Heydenreich for suggesting an attribution to the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder and dating the work to circa 1545-50 on the basis of digital images (written communication, 20 December 2025).
Though no completely autograph painting of this subject by Lucas Cranach the Elder survives, it must have been one that he treated as a few examples by Lucas Cranach the Younger and other contemporaries associated with his father’s workshop are known. These include the upright panel of around 1535 by Cranach the Elder’s workshop (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. no. Gal.-Nr. 1934), the 1558 Epitaph of Michael Meyenburg by Lucas Cranach the Younger (formerly Evangelische Kirchengemeinde St. Blasii, Nordhausen), as well as a painting in a private collection attributed to the Master of the Pflock Altarpiece (sold Koller, Zurich, 19 September 2014, lot 3014). In all of these, Christ makes an similar gesture with his hands while he stands over Lazarus’s open tomb. In the present painting, some of the Apostles and a throng of onlookers stand behind Christ, conversing among themselves with expressions of stupefied awe as they witness this divine act, which by Cranach’s day was viewed as a prefiguration of Christ’s own Resurrection. A young man in red, perhaps John the Evangelist, holds a book while pointing to his left, underscoring that Lazarus will now once again be able to leave his tomb and walk among the living. The white and blue drapery seen at lower left in front of Christ likely corresponds to the shoulder and sleeve of one of his Apostles, who kneels above Lazarus’s tomb to help him rise to his feet.
At the time of this painting's sale in Paris, 2022, Dr. Dieter Koepplin confirmed its attribution to Lucas Cranach the Younger on the basis of photographs. We are grateful to Gunnar Heydenreich for suggesting an attribution to the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder and dating the work to circa 1545-50 on the basis of digital images (written communication, 20 December 2025).