Protestant Baroque: The Afterlife of a Reformation Altarpiece

Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Schneeberg Altar is one of the great visual monuments of the Lutheran Reformation. Installed in 1539 in the St. Wolfgangskirche in this prosperous mining town in Saxony’s Erzgebirge, it has, until recently, received less scholarly attention than the Wittenberg (1547) and Weimar (1555) altars. Yet is a fascinating object, not only because of its pre-eminent historical status and its high artistic quality, but also because of its post-Reformation history. In 1633 the painted panels were stolen by mercenaries in imperial pay, and taken to Prague. In 1649 they were returned to Schneeberg at the behest of the local community, thanks to the intervention of the Saxon elector. The altar was reassembled and consecrated by the local pastor Christoph Schindler in 1650. In 1712 it was dismantled once again, and parts – its central panel and predella – were set in a remarkable baroque edifice that survived in situ until 1945. My paper will explore the functions that Cranach’s masterpiece fulfilled as it moved through time: from its birth as an object designed to communicate and commemorate the basic tenets of the newly established Lutheran faith; to its seventeenth-century incarnation as a site where sacred memory and historical memory – of the Reformation but also of the Thirty Years War – converged; to its apotheosis as a baroque reliquary. Each stage in the altarpiece’s story demonstrates that images could constitute an important part of Lutheran culture. My paper will therefore suggest that to the objects and practices that historians have always recognized as identitätsstiftende for early modern Lutherans, as core components of confessional identity – Luther’s Bible translation, congregational hymn singing, a particular understanding of the Eucharist – we should, with caution, add visual piety.