The Wright Museum of Art is celebrating 10 years of the Wanda Hollensteiner Conservation and Lecture Series. In the past decade, the Wanda Hollensteiner Conservation and Lecture Series has drawn attention to significant works in the collection and has elevated the profile of the Wright Museum’s collection among curators and art historians. Funding for the lecture is generously provided by Wanda Hollensteiner’54 and James Hollensteiner. This year’s conservation piece is the Adoration of the Magi by the School of Lucas Cranach.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472–1553) was a prominent painter and printmaker in the 16th century as evidenced by his many pupils and followers. A close friend of Martin Luther, he often painted portraits of leaders in the Protestant Reformation. He and his workshop also explored painting traditional Catholic themes. The Adoration of the Magi, gifted to the Wright Museum in 1960 by Charles H. Morse, depicts the Virgin with the Christ child on her lap, surrounded by the three gift-bearing kings.

The painting was treated by Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC) painting conservator, Rita Berg, and will be unveiled Thursday, Jan. 31 at this lecture. The presentation will be given by Bonnie Noble, associate professor of art history at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Bonnie Noble received her Ph.D. in art history from Northwestern University, her master’s in art history from the University of Pennsylvania and her bachelor’s of art in religious studies from Northwestern University.

Noble specializes in Northern Renaissance art, with a particular interest in the function of images in devotional. Her book Lucas Cranach the Elder: Art and Devotion of

the German Reformation, was published in 2009 by University Press of America.

Please join us for Noble’s lecture: A Multifaceted Madonna from the School of Lucas Cranach on Thursday, Jan. 31 at 12 p.m. in the Logan Room of the Wright Museum of Art.