For some years, I have wondered about the image on the left. It appears with some Luther materials and in Google searches of Martin Luther. It's described as an 1833 engraving of Luther based on a painting by King Henry VIII's court painter Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). As one who has seen a lot of Luther pictures, however, it never looked much like other images of Luther from the 16th century to me. For instance, check out the 1528 painting on the right by fellow Wittenberger Lucas Cranach the Elder.
It's close enough to give the benefit of the doubt. I was willing to grant that some 19th-century artist simply did a bad job copying a Luther pic. That's still a possibility. However, after a colleague voiced the same question, I decided to do a little more research. Hello, Google Books! I'm now convinced the picture is someone besides Luther.
The first evidence comes from a book entitled Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein, Painter, of Augsburg, published in 1867 by Ralph Nicholson Wornum, who was the Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery of London. Wornum's book says that the image in question was engraved in 1833 by C.E. Wagstaff, who attached the name "Luther" to it for Windsor Castle's portrait gallery (p. 152). That's the information that full-size online versions of the picture have on them.
Wornum, however, quickly dismissed the notion that Holbein ever painted Luther's portrait or that Wagstaff's copy was an image of Luther at all. According to him, the image identified as "Martin Luther" was based on a Holbein-credited portrait of the Reformation-era bishop of London, John Stokesley (ca. 1475-1539). For the record, Stokesley did not support the Reformation.
This identification of Bishop Stokesley was repeated in an 1869 annual survey of English culture. In a section discussing an 1868 exhibition of Holbein's portraits, the review states, "That of Bishop Stokesley, which was formerly at Hampton Court, under the name of 'Martin Luther,' is now preserved at Windsor Castle" (The Annual Register: London, 1869, p. 311).
An image of Holbein's portrait of Stokesley can be seen online. Since it belongs to the Royal Collection Trust and has a copyright belonging to the Queen, I will simply share the link: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/662313/john-stokesley-bishop-of-london. In addition to featuring the same hat, quill, coat and nose, both the 16th- and 19th-century versions carry the same crest in the upper right corner of the picture.
As best as I can reconstruct it, C.E. Wagstaff--a proflific engraver of the mid 1800s--was commissioned to make images of prominent figures for display. Wagstaff likely either himself mistakenly identified Holbein's portrait of Stokesley as a painting of Luther or simply accepted an existing error. Either way, within a few years, the mistake was noted and corrected by English curators.
150 years later, of course, we have the internet. Wagstaff's engraving of Holbein's Stokesley still has the name Luther under it. It is on the web as such, uncorrected. And thus a mistake of the past gets circulated anew. While a misidentified picture is not a big deal, it does suggest the following...
Moral: Google giveth and Google taketh away; blessed be the time spent fact-checking.
Dr. Martin Lohrmann
Wartburg Theological Seminary
Dubuque, IA
It's close enough to give the benefit of the doubt. I was willing to grant that some 19th-century artist simply did a bad job copying a Luther pic. That's still a possibility. However, after a colleague voiced the same question, I decided to do a little more research. Hello, Google Books! I'm now convinced the picture is someone besides Luther.
The first evidence comes from a book entitled Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein, Painter, of Augsburg, published in 1867 by Ralph Nicholson Wornum, who was the Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery of London. Wornum's book says that the image in question was engraved in 1833 by C.E. Wagstaff, who attached the name "Luther" to it for Windsor Castle's portrait gallery (p. 152). That's the information that full-size online versions of the picture have on them.
Wornum, however, quickly dismissed the notion that Holbein ever painted Luther's portrait or that Wagstaff's copy was an image of Luther at all. According to him, the image identified as "Martin Luther" was based on a Holbein-credited portrait of the Reformation-era bishop of London, John Stokesley (ca. 1475-1539). For the record, Stokesley did not support the Reformation.
This identification of Bishop Stokesley was repeated in an 1869 annual survey of English culture. In a section discussing an 1868 exhibition of Holbein's portraits, the review states, "That of Bishop Stokesley, which was formerly at Hampton Court, under the name of 'Martin Luther,' is now preserved at Windsor Castle" (The Annual Register: London, 1869, p. 311).
An image of Holbein's portrait of Stokesley can be seen online. Since it belongs to the Royal Collection Trust and has a copyright belonging to the Queen, I will simply share the link: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/662313/john-stokesley-bishop-of-london. In addition to featuring the same hat, quill, coat and nose, both the 16th- and 19th-century versions carry the same crest in the upper right corner of the picture.
As best as I can reconstruct it, C.E. Wagstaff--a proflific engraver of the mid 1800s--was commissioned to make images of prominent figures for display. Wagstaff likely either himself mistakenly identified Holbein's portrait of Stokesley as a painting of Luther or simply accepted an existing error. Either way, within a few years, the mistake was noted and corrected by English curators.
150 years later, of course, we have the internet. Wagstaff's engraving of Holbein's Stokesley still has the name Luther under it. It is on the web as such, uncorrected. And thus a mistake of the past gets circulated anew. While a misidentified picture is not a big deal, it does suggest the following...
Moral: Google giveth and Google taketh away; blessed be the time spent fact-checking.
Dr. Martin Lohrmann
Wartburg Theological Seminary
Dubuque, IA