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The Apostles' Creed (Das Symbolum der Heiligen Aposteln)

A work made of book with fifteen woodcuts with letterpress in black on cream laid paper, in eighteenth-century full brown sheepskin, sewn on raised bands, with gold tooled decoration on inner-edges of boards, blind lines and gold titling on the spine, hand-sewn silk headbands, marbled endsheets, and a purple silk page marker.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of book with fifteen woodcuts with letterpress in black on cream laid paper, in eighteenth-century full brown sheepskin, sewn on raised bands, with gold tooled decoration on inner-edges of boards, blind lines and gold titling on the spine, hand-sewn silk headbands, marbled endsheets, and a purple silk page marker.

Date:

1548

Artist:

Lucas Cranach the Elder
German, 1472-1553

About this artwork

Lucas Cranach’s Saint Simon—naked, trussed upside-down, and partially sawed in half—depicts the apostle en route to his full dismemberment (which made possible his eventual distribution in relic form). Evidently well-received in the single-sheet 1512 Catholic series, here the woodblocks were reprinted to illustrate Martin Luther’s German translation of the Apostles’ Creed. Despite the illustrations’ gratuitously violent detail, the Protestant publisher’s dedication to his daughters referred to them as “fine and pleasing images.”

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Lucas Cranach the Elder

Title

The Apostles' Creed (Das Symbolum der Heiligen Aposteln)

Place

Germany (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1548

Medium

Book with fifteen woodcuts with letterpress in black on cream laid paper, in eighteenth-century full brown sheepskin, sewn on raised bands, with gold tooled decoration on inner-edges of boards, blind lines and gold titling on the spine, hand-sewn silk headbands, marbled endsheets, and a purple silk page marker

Dimensions

Book: 20.4 × 15.4 × 0.8 cm (8 1/16 × 6 1/8 × 3/8 in.); Folio: 19.9 × 14.5 cm (7 7/8 × 5 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg in memory of Bessie Kisloff Braude, Esq.

Reference Number

2014.18

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/153591/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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