Kronach 1472-Weimar 1553 German painter and engraver. The son of a painter, he settled in Wittenberg c.1504 and was court painter successively under three electors of Saxony. There he maintained a flourishing workshop and was twice burgomaster. Cranach was a close friend of Martin Luther, whose doctrine he upheld in numerous paintings and woodcuts, and he has been called the painter of the Reformation. He was a rapid and prolific painter, and the work turned out by his studio is uneven in quality. Naïve and fanciful, often awkward in draftsmanship, it has, nonetheless, freshness and originality and a warm, rich palette. His portraits are particularly successful. Among his best-known works are Repose in Egypt (Gemäldgalerie, Staatliche Mus., Berlin-Dahlem); Judgment of Paris (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe); Adam and Eve (Courtauld Inst., London); and Crucifixion (Weimar). The latter contains figures of Luther and Cranach. His many famous protraits include those of Elector John Frederick and Self-Portrait (Uffizi). Cranach was also an accomplished miniaturist. He produced a few copperplates and designs for woodcuts. His son and pupil Lucas Cranach, the Younger,   Related Paintings of Lucas Cranach :. | Venus stand landscape | The Rest on The Flight into Egypt | Joachim II. Hektor, Kurfurst von Brandenburg | Crucifixion | Venus and Cupid with a Honeycomb |
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Nicholas Pocock
British Painter, 1741-1821 English painter. After an apprenticeship in the Bristol shipbuilding yards of Richard Champion, Pocock began a career at sea in the mid-1760s. He was a practised and gifted amateur watercolourist (his earliest signed and dated watercolour is from 1762), and when in command of the Lloyd, one of Champion's merchantmen, he began to keep detailed logbooks illustrated with wash drawings (four at London, N. Mar. Mus.). In 1780 he gave up his sea career, married and sent his first oil painting to the Royal Academy. The picture arrived too late for exhibition, but Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote back, noting 'It is much beyond what I expected from a first essay in oil colours'. Pocock exhibited annually at the Academy between 1782 and 1812 and enjoyed a steady supply of commissions for oil paintings and watercolours, mostly of marine subject-matter. He produced a series of watercolour views of Bristol (stylistically close to Edward Dayes) in the 1780s, many of which were engraved, and of Iceland in 1791.
Pablo de Cespedes
(1538 - July 26, 1608) was a Spanish painter, poet, and architect. His father, Alonso Cespedes, was descended of a noble Castilian family, once settled at Ocaña, and the name of his mother, who was a native of Alcolea de Torote, was Olaya de Arroya. Pablo was born and brought up in the house of his father's maternal uncle, Francisco Lopez de Aponte, Canon of Cordoba, where he received a learned education. At the age of eighteen, in 1556, he was sent to the Universidad Complutense in Alcale de Henares, and there, devoted himself to the acquirement of Oriental languages and theology. He later moved to Rome where he studied painting under Federico Zuccari. He was in Rome in February 1559, engaged in conducting certain negotiations for the Archbishop Carranza de Miranda, of Toledo, who then stood charged with heresy before the Inquisition of Valladolid. On the 17th of that month he addressed a letter to the prelate, informing him how his business stood at the Vatican, in which he incautiously reflected on the conduct of the Inquisitor-General Valdez, and the Holy Officeean offence which no Inquisitor-General would forgive. This document and others were seized with the primate's papers; he was therefore denounced by the tribunal, and but for his fortunate absence, would have been imprisoned. It is probable that he did not venture back into Spain for many years, until he had covered his sins with the protecting robes of the Church. He remained in Italy for over 20 years and built a reputation as an artist. His only surviving works from that period are the frescoes he painted in the Bonfili chapel at the Santa Trinite dei Monti church in Rome. He returned to Spain in 1577, and was appointed as the canon of the Cerdoba cathedral. He continued to write books on antiquarian topics such as the architecture of the temple of Solomon. He befriended Arias Montano. In 1604 he composed his Discourse of Ancient and Modern Painting and Sculpture in which he recounts anecdotes of Renaissance masters of Italy.
Lucia Anguissola
Italian Mannerist Painter, 1540-1565