Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg – Elector, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, a famous politician of the Reformation, primate of the Catholic Church in Germany.
Albrecht was the second son and the youngest, seventh child in the family of Elector Johann Cicero of Brandenburg and his wife Margarita of Saxony. Together with his brother in 1506, he founded a university in Frankfurt-on-Oder, where he himself studied.
At the age of 23 he became archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the diocese of Halberstadt. In 1514 he was promoted to the Archbishop of Mainz and received the Election of Mainz. Albrecht was in power from 1514 until his death in 1545.
Albrecht of Brandenburg was an admirer of sciences and a patron of the arts. It was in May 1529 that he decided to unite and restructure two existing churches on the market square of Halle to the cathedral, which is still considered the city’s calling card. For the interior of the cathedral, Albrecht commissioned Lucas Cranach to write 16 altars for a total of five years, consisting of a total of 142 paintings. This order is considered the largest order in the history of German art.
In this portrait, Albrecht is depicted in a red cardinal’s cap, in a rich black fur coat with a fur collar. A cardinal’s coat of arms is placed on a smooth green background. Calm composition, an important pose, haughty look – everything creates a majestic and at the same time very individual image.
The portrait of Cardinal Albrecht testifies to some neutrality of the artist to the place occupied by the customer in the religious struggle of those years. Neither friendship with Martin Luther and his associates, nor the place of the court painter of the Saxon Electors, who led a coalition of prince reformers, did not prevent Kranach from working for the figures of the Catholic Church.
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