Portrait of a Man, probably Johann Feige

The Portrait of a Man probably identified as Johann Feige, dated to around 1600 at the National Gallery London, presents the same attribution challenge as the Portrait of Katharina of Bora: a date well after Cranach the Elder's death in 1553. This is almost certainly a work by Lucas Cranach the Younger or his workshop — or possibly a later copy after a Cranach original from the mid-sixteenth century. Johann Feige, if the identification is correct, was a Saxon official and close associate of the Protestant princes, and his portrait would have been produced within the Lutheran patronage network that the Cranach workshop served across multiple generations. The National Gallery, which also holds the 1529 Venus and Cupid and the 1540 Charity, preserves this attributed work alongside the authenticated masterpieces, giving the institution an opportunity to display the range of quality and attribution complexity within the Cranach workshop tradition. The persistence of the Cranach name across multiple generations of workshop production reflects both the commercial value of the brand and the genuine continuity of the family's distinctive style.

The portrait is rendered with sinuous contours that characterizes Lucas Cranach the Elder's best work. Oil on canvas provides a rich ground for the subtle gradations of flesh tone and the textural contrasts between skin, fabric, and background that give the image its convincing presence.