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Secondary sourcePainting1800-1899

Domestic Life of Martin Luther at Wittenberg

Pierre-Antoine Labouchère (design); J. D. Nargeot (engraving) · 1800-1899

A 19th-century engraving imagining Luther playing the lute with his family at home in Wittenberg.

Imagines Luther's family life at Wittenberg, showing how later artists pictured his home and character.

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Black and white engraving of an interior room with coffered ceiling and four framed portraits on the wall. A man in dark robes and cap plays a lute at a table while a young boy with a tankard listens. On the right, a woman and a child sit by a window and an older man reads. Two children sit on the floor reading a book, and a dog lies near the left chair.
J. D. Nargeot after Pierre-Antoine Labouchère, Domestic Life of Martin Luther at Wittenberg, 19th century. Wellcome Collection, London.

About this source

What it is

This is a black-and-white engraving by J. D. Nargeot after a design by Pierre-Antoine Labouchère, made in the 1800s. It imagines a room in Luther's house at Wittenberg, showing Luther playing a lute while his wife, children, and Philip Melanchthon look on. It is held today by the Wellcome Collection in London.

Why it matters

The image reflects how later generations imagined Luther's private family life, presenting him as a devoted father and husband rather than only a religious reformer. Because it was made centuries after Luther's death, it tells us more about 19th-century ideas of domestic virtue than about the real scene in 1536.

Look closer

  • What details suggest a happy, orderly family life?
  • Why might artists in the 1800s want to show Luther this way?
  • What parts of this scene could the artist not have known for certain?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Martin Luther on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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