Elector John Frederick the Magnanimous with Book and Crucifix
A woodcut containing a portrait of John Frederick (Johann Friedrich) reading a book and praying before a crucifix. Frederick was a leader of the Schmalkaldic League and fought for Luther's cause against the Imperial troops. The league was defeated in the Battle of Muehlberg in April of 1547. Frederick was wounded by a slash across his left cheek, captured, condemned to death, but ultimately pardoned and reinstated as duke in Weimar. After 1547, however, the Electoral power had fallen to the rivalling Albertininian line of the dynasty residing in Dresden. The print depicts Frederick with the scar on his cheek. The book contains the words, "Hilf Got[t]" (help me God). Cranach marked the woodcut plate with his device and dated it to 1552, but the broadsheet in its current manifestation was printed in 1557.
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