Lucas Cranach, a painter of great repute in his day, like his contemporary Durer has also been supposed to be the engraver of the wood-cuts which bear his mark, but which, in all probability, were only drawn by him on the block and executed by professional wood engravers. The family name of this artist was Sunder, and he is also sometimes called Muller or Maler--Painter--from his profession. He acquired the name Cranach, or Von Cranach, from Cranach, a town in the territory of Bamberg, where he was born in 1470. He enjoyed the patronage of the electoral princes of Saxony, and one of the most frequent of his marks is a shield of the arms of that family. Another of his marks is a shield with two swords crossed; a third is a kind of dragon; and a fourth is the initial letters of his name, L. C. Sometimes two or three of those marks are to be found in one cut. There are four engravings on copper with the mark [[LCZ]] which are generally ascribed to this artist. That they are from his designs is very likely, but whether they were engraved by himself or not is uncertain. One of them bears the date 1492, and it is probable that they were all executed about the same period. Two of those pieces were in the possession of Mr. Ottley, who says, “Perhaps the two last characters of the mark may be intended for _Cr_.” It seems, however, more likely that the last character is intended for the letter which it most resembles--a Z, and that it denotes the German word _zeichnet_--that is “_drew_;” in the same manner as later artists occasionally subjoined the letter P or F to their names for _Pinxit_ or _Fecit_, respectively as they might have painted the picture or engraved the plate. One of the earliest chiaro-scuros, as has before been observed, printed from three blocks, is from a design of Lucas Cranach. It is dated 1509, nine years before the earliest chiaro-scuro with a date executed by Ugo da Carpi, to whom Vasari and others have erroneously ascribed the invention of this mode of imitating a drawing by impressions from two or more wood-blocks. The subject, like that of the following specimen, is a Repose in Egypt, but is treated in a different manner,--the Virgin being represented giving suck to the infant Christ.