Lucas Cranach the Elder was one of the most important artists of the German Renaissance. He embodied the idea of the Renaissance man, active not only as a painter and printmaker, but also as a successful entrepreneur and politician. Born in the Franconian town of Kronach, from which he took his name, Cranach is first documented to be active as a fully-fledged artist in Vienna in 1502, following a period of apprenticeship, which remains rather obscure. In 1505, he was called to Wittenberg to become court painter to Duke Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, supplying paintings, murals and decorations for the various ducal residences at Wittenberg, Veste Coburg, Torgau and elsewhere. Thanks to the speed, efficiency and invention with which he worked, Cranach became one of the most sought-after artists of his time, heading a large workshop that included his sons Hans (ca. 1513–1537) and Lucas the Younger (1515–1586), as well as numerous apprentices. He executed paintings of different genres, made engravings on copper, and drew designs for coins produced by the electoral mint. He also owned a press on which he printed his engravings. Following the death of Frederick the Wise in 1525, Cranach continued to work for his successors William and John, before passing away in Weimar in 1553.

A friend of Martin Luther, who lived and taught in Wittenberg under the protection of the Electors of Saxony, Cranach often engaged in depictions of religious themes. The subject of the present work is the story of Saint Christopher, the patron saints of travellers, which was enormously popular all- over Northern Europe from the fourteenth century onwards. Images were widely spread, because they were believed to prevent the onlooker from sudden death on the same day. According to the Golden Legend, Christopher was a hulking Canaanite man, originally called Reprobus, who desired to serve the best king there was. During his wanderings in search of the all-powerful Christ, he came upon a hermit who told him that, because of his size and strength, he should have served the Lord by carrying people across an otherwise unfordable river. One day, a child approached Saint Christopher by the river and asked to be helped across. As Christopher started to carry him, the child got heavier and heavier, and the flow stronger and stronger. After eventually reaching the opposite shore, the child revealed himself to be Christ, telling Christopher that, by carrying him, he had just carried the weight of the world. From that moment on, Reprobus was renamed Christophoros, which, in Greek, means "the Christ-bearer".

In the present work, Cranach depicted the story of Christopher according to its traditional iconography. The saint is represented as a giant man with unkempt, curly hair and beard, dressed in a red tunic with dark blue sleeves underneath, and a blue and white collar, wearing a sword and a saddlebag on his belt. As is traditional in depictions of the saint, Christopher fords the river using a large staff – one of his identifying attributes – which bends under the weight of Christ Child. This sits on the saint’s left shoulder, holding an orb in one hand, and giving his blessing with his other hand. The scene is set in a fantastic, rocky landscape, where other figures appear. In the left part of the picture, standing on the bank of the river, is the hermit, who had instructed Christopher in the Christian faith. In the lower foreground is a monstrous fish swimming in the river, chasing after a nude young woman, possibly a nymph or a mermaid.

According to M. J. Friedländer and J. Rosenberg, Cranach painted Saint Christopher with the Christ child crossing a stream in circa 1518-1520, when he was already an artist in high demand. Around the same time, he painted two other works of the same subject, which are today in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts (1518-1520) and the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens. Despite some variations, the three paintings share a very similar composition. They all include the detail of the nymph/mermaid, which is Cranach’s personal addition to the story, possibly symbolising temptation, while the fish might be a symbol of danger. Cranach depicted the story of Saint Christopher also on other occasions, on the lateral wings of polyptychs, as exemplified by a panel in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, where the figures are depicted against a dark background, and in another from a private collection. He also addressed the theme in printmaking, in a popular woodcut of which examples can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Washington National Gallery.