Madonna and Child with Grapes

Lucas Cranach the Elder worked in a time of religious upheaval. Martin Luther (a close associate of Cranach) led the Protestant Reformation challenging the Catholic Church, arguing that man could have a direct relationship with God without the need for a priest to intermediate. Cranach adapted familiar Catholic imagery to the Protestant Reformation. The image of Mary as a half-figure with her son Jesus Christ as a little man standing on her lap is derived from Italian prototypes of the later 1400s. Jesus holds a single grape, which he has picked from a bunch held by his mother, a symbolic allusion to the Eucharist and his future sacrifice on the cross.