Under the direction of Prof. Gunnar Heydenreich, the cooperation project "Cranach Digital Archive" (cda) is researching the extensive artistic oeuvre of the Cranach family of painters. The results will be published at "lucascranach.org":
"In October 2009, eight major museums in Europe and the USA, together with the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf and the Technical University of Cologne, began a research project to digitally index the paintings of one of the most important painters of the German Renaissance: Lucas Cranach the Elder. The project was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of a larger initiative aimed at developing an internet-based infrastructure for the exchange and communication of new art historical, technological and scientific research findings that transcends institutional and international boundaries. The extensive pool of image and text information is intended to provide the public with a deeper understanding of Lucas Cranach's art and to support researchers in the future in answering questions about attribution and workshop organisation, among other things.
The Cranach research project is currently in its fourth phase. The aim is to further expand the existing network, develop the infrastructure and increase the content in order to lay the foundation for an innovative, comprehensive and collaborative source of knowledge about Lucas Cranach and his workshop that is significantly different from the traditional model of a catalogue of works." (cda, 17.11.2020)
To date, records on 2050 paintings have been published, and numerous source manuscripts have also been digitised and transcribed, as well as an extensive literature database.