“This is not Martin Luther” by Martin Lohrmann

For some years I have wondered about the image shown here, which has recently been featured in academic and church resources. It serves, for instance, as the cover of Martin Luther’s Basic
Theological Writings, Third Edition,1 and as the picture accompanying the entry “Luther, A Biography” in The Encyclopedia of Martin Luther and the Reformation.2 It is commonly labeled in online images of Martin Luther, if it is attributed at all, as an 1833 engraving of Luther, based on a painting by King Henry VIII’s court painter Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543). Having seen many Luther portraits—especially paintings by Luther’s friend and collaborator Lucas Cranach the Elder—I never thought this one looked like other images of Luther from the sixteenth century.

CLICK HERE to read more of the article that shows this now easily available image of “Luther” is actually Bishop Stokesley of London.

The original painting of Bishop Stokesley (attributed to Hans Holbein) can be viewed in the online collection of the Royal Trust Collection: https://www.rct.uk/collection/662313/john-stokesley-bishop-of-london.