Cranach. The Early Years in Vienna

Around 1500, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) appears out of nowhere - in Vienna. Here, he produced his earliest known works before moving to Wittenberg to become court painter to the Electors of Saxony. Unlike his later courtly-elegant manner, Cranach's Viennese paintings, drawings and woodcuts reveal a crudely expressive idiom that identifies him as a precursor of the "Danube School" ; but they also document the close contacts that existed between the almost thirty-year-old artist and the city's humanist circles around Conrad Celtes and Johannes Cuspinian.
Published in connection with the important exhibition shown in Winterthur (Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am Römerholz") and Vienna (Kunsthismrisches Museum Vienna), the catalogue examines this, the earliest known phase of the artist's career. Is presents almost all the works he produced during this short period, which are among the collections' greatest treasures. Individual essays explore Cranach's artistic roots, his Viennese environment, and the history of the rediscovery of this exceptional period at the turn of the twentieth century.