Charity

Charity at the National Gallery London (1540) represents Cranach's mature handling of the theological virtue allegory — the subject refined through multiple treatments in the 1530s into a formula that balanced the moral content with the visual appeal that his patrons required. The National Gallery's version, dated to around 1540, shows the Charity figure with the characteristic qualities Cranach had developed for the subject: the tall, idealized nude female form, the active children whose movement contrasts with her stillness, the outdoor setting that gave the composition natural light and spatial depth. As one of the three theological virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity), Caritas held special importance in Lutheran theology — Luther's emphasis on love as the active expression of faith, following from sola fide's internalization of salvation, made Charity more rather than less important in Protestant moral culture. The National Gallery, which also holds the important 1529 Venus and Cupid, preserves two of Cranach's major secular-mythological and virtue-allegory productions in a single collection, demonstrating the overlap between these apparently different categories in his workshop's output.

Multiple children surrounding the central female figure create a complex, interlocking composition. Cranach's smooth, linear style renders the flesh with characteristic porcelain-like surfaces, while the children's varied poses demonstrate his skill at depicting the infant body.