Portraits by Cranach

The name Lucas Cranach generally calls to mind sexy mythological paintings, ornate altar pieces, and lively woodcuts satirizing the Roman Catholic Church. Cranach's delicate, pregnant-looking nudes are sly as cats, and inhabit gardens painted to look as cozy as quilts. His satiric woodcuts echo the attacks that his friend Martin Luther made on Rome.

Cranach had another string to his bow: as one of Europe's best court painters, he had scores of portrait commissions from the 16th Century princes and princelings of northern Europe. Last week some of those early Protestant noblemen stared from the walls of a Manhattan gallery. Cranach's oil-on-paper portraits were intended merely as notes for more finished paintings, but they are shrewd, thorough notes.

Among the best is Cranach's sketch of Philip, Duke of Pomerania, a picture once attributed (along with several other Cranachs) to Albrecht Duerer, one of history's greatest draftsmen. Cranach dramatized details of character that a candid camera might have caught: the fierce brow, the thoughtful squint, the sad, confident mouth.

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