Portrait of a Man with a Rosary

This portrait is one wing of a dismantled triptych in which paintings of a man and a woman flanked a now-lost central panel, perhaps depicting the Virgin and Child. The young, well-dressed sitter appears to offer a silent prayer as he counts the beads of the rosary held in his left hand. The man’s ring, bearing the coats of arms of two aristocratic Dutch families, suggests that he came from the Netherlands. Cranach probably painted this portrait during his visit there in 1508.