David and Bathseba

David and Bathsheba (1526) engages an Old Testament narrative that had specific resonances within the Reformation debate: the story of a king who abuses his power to take another man's wife was used by reformers as evidence that even God's chosen could sin grievously, requiring divine forgiveness rather than human righteousness. Cranach's treatment, like his Venus and Lucretia series, uses the naked female figure as both a sacred narrative element and a sophisticated demonstration of his distinctive aesthetic. The Gemäldegalerie Berlin panel of 38.8 × 25.7 cm belongs to the intimate cabinet-scale format Cranach favored for secular and semi-secular subjects, paintings intended for private viewing rather than public devotion. Bathsheba in her bath — seen by David from his rooftop — gave Cranach the opportunity to paint his characteristic female type in a bath setting that had classical precedent (Susanna and the Elders being the parallel Old Testament subject). Albrecht Dürer's moralizing approach to such subjects contrasts with Cranach's more ambiguously sensual engagement.

The panel shows Cranach's characteristic treatment of the female figure with pale flesh, sharp linear precision, and the knowing expression that gives his biblical subjects their distinctive appeal.