The work was one of about ten portrait commissions from Cranach by Albert, including at least three other surviving works showing Albert as Saint Jerome (a 1525 one now in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt,[3] a 1527 one in John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota[4] and a c.1527 one in a private collection[5]). All four of them show Jerome's lion, whilst in two of them Jerome is in the wasteland and two in his study, both common motifs during the Renaissance.
There are also a number of half-length portraits of the cardinal, for example in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (1526),[6] Jagdschloss Grunewald in Berlin (after 1529)[7] and the Landesmuseum in Mainz (1543),[8] whilst there is also Albert with Christ on the Cross (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), part of Cranach's large series of crucifixion images.[9]
Portrait of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg,
Hermitage Museum, 40 x 24,5
cm, 1526.
Portrait of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg,
Jagdschloss Grunewald, post 1529, 53,4 x 40,2
cm.
Portrait of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg,
Landesmuseum Mainz, 52,3 x 37,5
cm, workshop of Cranach
Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg with the Crucifixion,
Alte Pinakothek, c. 1520–1525.