Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Reclining Nymph, painted…

Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Reclining Nymph, painted in 1518, displays influences of Quentin Massys and Jan Gossaert, as well as of Flemish and Italian Renaissance artists.

Cranach's religious subjects reflect the development of the Protestant Reformation, and its attitudes to religious images.

In his early career, he had painted several Madonnas; his first woodcut (1505) represents the Virgin and three saints in prayer before a crucifix.

Later on he painted the marriage of St. Catherine, a series of martyrdoms, and scenes from the Passion.

After 1517 he will occasionally illustrate the old subjects, but will also give expression to some of the thoughts of the Reformers, although his portraits of reformers are more common than paintings of religious scenes.

In a picture of 1518, where a dying man offers "his soul to God, his body to earth, and his worldly goods to his relations", the soul rises to meet the Trinity in heaven, and salvation is clearly shown to depend on faith and not on good works.