New Acquisitions

Six years ago a staff member of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts saw a striking pair of portraits in the shop of a Chicago art dealer. They were rare works from the middle period of Lucas Cranach the Elder, one of the great German painters of the early 16th century. The 10 3/4-by-16 1/8-in. wood panels, described by experts as among Cranach's finest portraits, show Moritz Buchner, mayor of Leipzig, and his wife Anna, elaborately dressed and richly bejeweled, the man gazing at the world with shrewd but not unkind eyes, the woman modest, grave, rather sad. The portraits roused considerable excitement in German art circles when they were shown in 1928 in Frankfurt, later made their way via Switzerland to Chicago. For six years the Minneapolis Institute of Arts dickered with the Chicago dealer. This week the institute announced acquisition of the portraits. Price for the pair: $42,000.

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