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The Nymph of the Spring
Lucas Cranach the Elder·after 1537
Historical Context
Lucas Cranach the Elder's Nymph of the Spring is one of his most successful secular mythological compositions — a format he developed over several decades into one of the most commercially successful products of his busy Wittenberg workshop. The sleeping nymph beside a spring or fountain was Cranach's adaptation of the Italian reclining nude for a Northern European context: instead of Venus or Danae in an Italianate setting, he offered a water sprite from the Germanic forest tradition, sleeping beside a natural spring with the specific quality of the North German landscape around her. The Latin inscription that typically accompanies such paintings — warning visitors not to disturb the nymph's rest — added a note of literary culture that made the erotic display respectable for humanist patrons while barely disguising its appeal. After 1537 Cranach produced numerous versions of this composition, refining the formula with each treatment while meeting consistent market demand. As court painter to the Electors of Saxony since 1505 and a close personal friend of Martin Luther, Cranach occupied a unique position: simultaneously a pillar of the Lutheran Reformation and a producer of images — the reclining nude, the honey-stealing Cupid — that navigated the complex territory of desire and moral instruction in ways both his Protestant and his Catholic patrons could accommodate.
Technical Analysis
The reclining nude shows Cranach's distinctive body type — pale, elongated, and smooth — set against a dark landscape. The transparent veil and precise rendering of vegetation demonstrate his technical refinement on panel.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the Latin inscription on the painting warning against disturbing the nymph's rest — the text is built into the composition, framing the image as a literary quotation rather than a pure picture.
- ◆Look at the transparent veil draped across the nymph's body — it conceals nothing while providing technical justification for the display of the nude.
- ◆Observe the dark landscape backdrop against which the pale figure is placed — Cranach's standard device for making his nudes luminous by contrast.
- ◆The precisely rendered vegetation beside the figure demonstrates the miniaturist precision that Cranach applied even to incidental landscape details.
Provenance
Probably Baron von Schenck, Flechtingen Castle, near Magdeburg.[1] (Bohler and Steinmeyer, Lucerne and New York, 1931-1933).[2] Clarence Y. Palitz [d.1958], New York, by 1939;[3] gift (partial and promised)1957 to NGA; gift completed 1958. [1] Max J. Friedländer and Jacob Rosenberg. _Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach_. (Berlin, 1932), 53-54, nos. 123-124 (Rev. ed. _The Paintings of Lucas Cranach_. Amsterdam, 1978, 99, nos. 145-146, repro.), cites the painting as being formerly in the von Schenck collection, though this is not verified. [2] Information from a copy of the Böhler stock records in the Getty Provenance Index, Santa Monica; letter of 18 August 1988, from Martha Hepworth to Sally E. Mansfield, in curatorial files. The painting is listed as being on consignment from "Sarasota," it has not been possible to verify Hepworth's suggestion that this might refer to John Ringling. A notation in the stock records suggests that the painting passed to the dealer Paul Cassirer, but it has not been possible to confirm this. Böhler and Steinmeyer was the firm created by Julius Böhler, Munich, and Fritz Steinmeyer, Lucerne, and operated from the 1920s on; see letter of 29 August 1988, in curatorial files, from Julius Böhler to John Hand. [3] Listed as being in his collection in the Exhibition catalogue _Classics of the Nude_, New York, 1939, no. 54.
