A Faun and His Family with a Slain Lion

A faun and his family posed beside a slain lion — drawn from ancient classical art depicting wild woodland creatures and their human-animal hybrid existence — gave Cranach an opportunity to explore secular, quasi-mythological subject matter outside the constraints of courtly portrait or religious commission. The J. Paul Getty Museum's 1526 canvas belongs to a group of works in which Cranach engaged with the antique tradition of satyrs, fauns, and woodland divinities that Northern Renaissance artists encountered through Italian prints and ancient sculpture. The slain lion elevates the faun to the status of a hunter-hero, adapting classical conventions to German taste.

Cranach renders the faun family — part-human, part-goat — with characteristic attention to the contrast between the idealised human faces and the hairy, animal lower bodies. The texture of fur and the smooth skin of the children are differentiated with deliberate precision. The lion's tawny body provides a warm, dramatic element in the lower foreground.