Lucas Cranach the Elder was a close friend of Martin Luther and painted him several times. This portrait is at The Met; another from the same year is at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. Luther was excommunicated by the Pope on January 3, 1521. Three months later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V declared him an outlaw and a heretic.
“If you want to change the world,” wrote Luther, “pick up your pen and write.”
Martin Luther, probably 1532, Workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Oil on wood, 13 1/8 x 9 1/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Robert Lehman, 1955 (55.220.2). www.metmuseum.org
Two sources of inspiration for me here: Luther and Cranach.