16 MAY – 4 OCTOBER 2015
The Cultural Foundation DessauWörlitz is making a special contribution to the many tributes on offer in the Cranach Year 2015 with its exhibition in the Gothic House. Beginning in 1773, the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau began establishing the Gothic House in Wörlitzer Park as a chamber of arts amidst an assemblage of Gothic architecture. The focus of the collection was on works of Old German and Old Dutch paining. The collection once included nearly 600 paintings, among them masterpieces by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger and their workshops. The Gothic House still has 18 paintings connected to the Cranach family, among them the important full-length portraits of Joachim Ernst of Anhalt-Dessau and his wife Agnes von Barby, by Lucas Cranach the Younger.

The exhibition presents the works for the first time in a reconstruction of the historic hangings. Some of the works are displayed in one-to-one photographic reproductions. The exhibition recreates the original context of the collection for the viewer, offering insight into its art-historical and historical aspects while allowing the visitor to retrace the Duke’s political and religious aims