Portrait of a Lady and her Son

Portrait of a Lady and Her Son, painted in 1525 and held in the Royal Collection, depicts an unidentified noblewoman with her child in a format that combines portrait and family documentation. The double portrait format with parent and child was relatively rare in German Renaissance painting, making this work unusual in Cranach’s oeuvre. The mother’s elegant dress and the child’s fine clothing indicate high social status. The painting’s presence in the British Royal Collection suggests it entered English ownership through diplomatic channels or the art market that circulated German Renaissance paintings across European courts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Cranach's distinctive style is evident in the sharp linear clarity and decorative elegance of the composition. The relationship between mother and child is rendered with both formal dignity and genuine tenderness.