Proposal to change the LNAB of Lucas Cranach the Elder

+15 votes
228 views

I want to suggest that Lucas Cranach the Elder gets a change of his LNAB. Research says that he is the son of Hans Sunder genannt Maler (Hans Sunder called Painter). That name is also used in the German Biography Portal and in the names collection about Lucas in the German National Library. Art History knows that he only started to use the signature "Lucas Cranach" when he lived in Vienna at the start of the 1500s. He used it as a toponyme, meaning "Lucas from Kronach", where he was born.
Also Lucas' sister Anna married her cousin Bartholomäus Sunder genannt Maler. They are considered the progenitors of the known Franconian family "Sündermahler".

WikiTree profile: Lucas Cranach
in Policy and Style by Jelena Eckstädt G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)

I'm probably stirring up a hornet's nest, but at least according to the WikiTree rules regarding the LNAB, this seems unquestionably necessary and only logical ... Or are there other rules for notables?

(Primary Source ?) ;)

Jelena, unless I missed something, you haven't said specifically what you would like the LNAB to become. Would it be Sunder, or Sunder genannt Maler, or Sündermahler?

If his father was "genannt Maler", doesn't that mean he was born plain Hans Sunder and became a painter? In that case Hans's LNAB would be Sunder only. That may or may not transfer to Lucas.

Compare with

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1584380/suggested-approach-to-entering-english-alias-names

@Sven: Original sources are preferred, but reliable sources are ok too. I consider the Cranach Stiftung, from which I have the biography of Lucas which mentions also the court trial, where a surname is mentioned, a reliable source. These are obviously people who work with Cranach 365 days a year. To name this source "unreliable" is simply wrong.

Edited to change a typo


@Jim: Thanks for your remark. His father was a Sunder at birth who was later "Sunder genannt Maler." "Sündermahler" does not affect Lucas, that is only the line of his sister and her husband. In the documents about the trial cited in the biography, the children of Hans Sunder are at one point named "the Maler-children". So I would name Lucas "Sunder genannt Maler".

Those rules do not always make sense, especially in times and places where the administration of names and registration of persons was less strict than we are now used to.

Some people also had more than one (set of) names, and were known in posterity by their later names. There is an interesting G2G discussion on names of Australian aboriginals along this line. I've seen the same in South Africa.

The least that is necessary, it to maintain the 'Lucas Cranach' name in a way and place to guarantee that this profile will be found in searches for 'Lucas Cranach'.

Does the current wikitree naming scheme allow for enough freedom to enter such alternative but equally valid (sets of) names for the same individual? I'm afraid not (yet).
Cranach will come into CLN and that way the profile will appear in searches.
@Jelena - agree! But just in case they provide a primary source, can you please look for that and add it to the profile? Thanks for all the great and detailed work!
Jelena, this would have been my only concern (the CLN), but you've answered it to my satisfaction. Thanks!
@Sven: They publicly don't seem to provide the source. Matricula starts in Kronach in 1611. So we have to trust them.

@Pip: I wouldn't have kicked out the Cranach entirely. I know that this is the name he is worldwidely known.

1 Answer

+5 votes
I'm not sure, but this reminds me of my own ancestors (in Menslage, near Fürstenau, Osnabrück, 1600's). The first man along the male line carrying my surname was born with a different surname, and then received the surname of his wife when he married her.  This was written down in later records as ...'genannt' ...

This was a (local?) custom, but more common also in other places, that when a woman had inherited the farm, her surname would be the one that was transferred to the family of her and her husband.
by NC Brummer G2G6 Mach 1 (16.2k points)
Hans Sunder was a painter, he taught Lucas to paint. None of his paintings survived, neither did paintings of Lucas survive before he went to Vienna. But this genannt-name is not inherited of Lucas' mother, it is known that she was a Anna Bühler. As I said, in the court documents they are named as the "Maler-children".

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