Cranach

Power tools and paint made for a sometimes-harrowing repair kit for Lucas Cranach the Elder’s pair of panel paintings ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ from circa 1530.

Cranach sure knew how to deliver cultivated sensuality, and clients ate it up.

The Pasadena pair, together with the stellar example at the Uffizi Museum in Florence, Italy, resides at quality’s peak, surely all by Cranach’s own hand.

I saw the Cranach panels three times in the conservation studio.

Individual slats have lots of knots, many of them requiring removal and replacement with inserts in Cranach’s workshop, and some during subsequent conservation.