Jean V d'Anhalt-Dessau

A sixteen year old prince stands in armour, short sword in one hand, the other fist on his hip. Cranach painted Johann of Anhalt around 1520 as one half of a pair, and the pair quietly reveals who outranked whom.

The story behind the painting

Johann of Anhalt's father Ernst died in 1516, and Johann then ruled the Principality of Anhalt with two brothers under the guardianship of his mother, Margarethe of Muensterberg. He was also under the guardianship of Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg, so around 1516 he went to the electoral court in Coelln, where he was probably raised alongside the electoral prince Joachim II, who was the same age. Cranach painted both boys at sixteen. The pair can be dated between autumn 1520 and spring 1521. Since no visit by Cranach to Coelln is known, they were probably made in his Wittenberg workshop.

What to look for

The panel, on beech wood, measures 64.9 by 45.8 cm. Johann is seen in three quarter view from the left, wearing a cuirass in the manner of a costume armour. The horizontal ridges hammered out on the arms imitate the dress of the Landsknechte, the foot soldiers of the time. His left hand holds a short sword while his right hand is planted on his hip. In the upper part a Latin inscription reads, in translation, A picture of the illustrious young lord Johann, Prince of Anhalt, at the age of 16 years, 1520. The Wikidata entry gives 1520 as the date.

Meaning and intent

The portrait has a companion piece showing the electoral prince Joachim II of Brandenburg, also aged sixteen and in full armour. Side by side, the two pictures make differences in rank visible. Johann's picture is painted with less artistic effort than that of the higher ranking Joachim, his armour is less elaborately worked, and he wears less jewellery. Portraits of princes in armour like these only became common in the Holy Roman Empire in the second half of the sixteenth century. In the work of Cranach the Elder they are unique, which suggests the pair was a commission, though the patron is unknown.

Legacy

Two stays of the young nobles in Wittenberg are documented: on 16 January 1520, on their way to the Imperial Diet at Worms, and on 28 March 1520, on their return. From the early nineteenth century until after the First World War the painting belonged to the Dukes of Anhalt and hung in the Gothic House at Woerlitz. In 1958 it was acquired from a private owner in Cologne for exhibitions in Berlin. Today it belongs to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, inventory number GK I 30029, and hangs in the picture collection of the Grunewald Hunting Lodge in Berlin.