He seems to have invented the full-length portrait as an independent work of art, for the splendid pair of Henry the Pious of Saxony and his Duchess (1514: both in Dresden, and probably originally on one panel) certainly ante-date the Italian examples by Moretto and others, and probably ante-date other German examples: only Carpaccio's Knight has a claim to be earlier, although such figures had long been a feature of religious works as the donors. All his life Cranach continued to paint splendid portraits, including a large number of versions of Luther, but at the same time he developed for the Court a new kind of highly erotic female nude, usually full-length, painted with a glossy, enamel-like finish and purporting to represent Lucretia, Venus, or some other mythological character. They usually wear elaborate hats and jewellery, but not much else.

From about 1505/9 he made a number of woodcuts, much influenced by Durer, and from about 1520 he designed many more, often rather crudely executed, to illustrate the Bible, or the writings of the Reformers.

Most of his pictures are signed with a winged snake and the monogram LC, but it is very difficult to distinguish his own works from those produced in his shop or by his sons Hans (d.1537) and Lucas II (1515-86). One of the most interesting lost masterpieces must be his portrait of Titian, painted in 1550 at Augsburg.

There are pictures by him in the Royal Coll., and in Augsburg, Basle, Berlin, Boston, Bristol, Brunswick, Brussels, Budapest, Cincinnati, Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz), Darmstadt, Detroit, Dresden, Edinburgh (NG), Florence (Uffizi), Frankfurt (Stadel), Glasgow (Burrell), Kansas City, Karlsruhe, Knightshayes Court Devon (NT), Leipzig, Lisbon, Liverpool, London (NG, Courtauld Inst.), Milwaukee, Munich, New York (Met. Mus.), Nuremberg, Oslo, Ottawa, Paris (Louvre), Philadelphia, St Petersburg, Sarasota Fla, Stockholm, Toledo Ohio, Vaduz (Liechtenstein), Vienna (KHM, Akad., Albertina), Weimar, Wroclaw (Mus. and Cath.), Yale and many other museums.