The Crucifixion

The Crucifixion — Lucas Cranach the Elder. 1538.

Medium: Oil on panel. Dimensions: 121.1 × 82.5 cm (47 3/4 × 32 1/2 in.); Framed: 147.4 × 109 × 7.7 cm (58 × 42 7/8 × 3 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

In this crowded scene, traditional vignettes from the Crucifixion story surround the central figure of Jesus Christ on the cross. Jesus’s mother, the Virgin Mary, swoons amid a group of believers in the lower left corner. On the other side of the cross are Christ’s condemners and the cynics who rejected him, among them the soldiers who cast dice to divide up his clothing. Cranach was a good friend of the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, and though the Crucifixion was a subject more strongly associated with Catholics, Cranach included details that reinforce the Protestant emphasis on the power of faith and individual responsibility—for instance, the figure of the young boy learning from an older man at the foot of the central cross.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.