Lot 102: WOLFGANG KRODEL

WOLFGANG KRODEL SCHNEEBURG? 1500 - 1561 THE ILL-MATCHED LOVERS signed and dated upper left: W:K: 1528. oil on panel 46.2 by 41 cm.; 18 1/4 by 16 1/8 in.

Anonymous sale, Cologne, Lempertz, 19 November 2005, lot 1087.

Wolfgang Krodel was apprenticed to Lucas Cranach the Elder and worked in his studio for several years. He was one of Cranach's best students and his mature works, such as the 1543 Adam and Eve sold Vienna, Dorotheum, 24 April 2007, lot 463, have often been mistaken for those of his master. The vast majority of his known works are derived or copied from Cranach and the present work is no exception; Cranach painted numerous versions on this theme, the closest of which to Krodel's own rendition is probably that in the National Museum, Warsaw.υ1 Krodel was widely patronised in Saxony and he eventually set up his own studio there, specifically in Schneeberg in the Ore mountains.

1. See M.J. Friedländer & J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, p. 126, cat. no. 289, reproduced.