Lukas Furtenagel

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Lukas Furtenagel (1505–1546) was a painter from Augsburg in the Holy Roman Empire. He came from a family of artists and began studying art early. He was a student of Hans Burgkmair and started his apprenticeship in 1515, when he was about ten. He briefly joined Lucas Cranach the Elder’s workshop in Wittenberg and later worked in Halle from 1542 to 1546. In 1546 he was called to Eisleben to paint Martin Luther after Luther’s death, and after returning to Augsburg in the fall of 1546 he was made a master.

Few of Furtenagel’s works survive. One notable piece is a double portrait of Hans Burgkmair with his wife Anna, ages 56 and 52, shown as a vanitas with death’s heads reflected in a hand mirror. The mirror bears the inscription "Recognize thyself/o death/hope of the world." This painting was once thought to be by Burgkmair and is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Another important work is Furtenagel’s posthumous portrait of Martin Luther. Luther died on February 18, 1546, and Furtenagel traveled from Halle to Eisleben to paint him after his death. Earlier that day, another Eisleben artist had painted Luther on his deathbed, but Furtenagel’s drawing became the basis for several reproductions, including Lucas Cranach the Younger’s Portrait of Martin Luther on his Death Bed (1546). Furtenagel drew Luther twice, on the 18th and the following day. The surviving drawing is now in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.