Art Institute of Chicago

Sudarium Displayed by Two Angels

Albrecht Dürer

Date

1513

Medium

Engraving in black on off-white laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The impression of Christ’s sweat is said to have formed the original Sudarium when a widow wiped his brow as he paused on the way to his death at Golgotha. This relic and portrait made its way to Rome, and when it came in contact with other cloths, those too bore Christ’s image, in a proliferation that can be seen as a metaphor for the printmaking process. Viewers saying the prayer Salve Sancta Facies (Hail Holy Face) while contemplating the original relic were said to receive indulgences reducing their stay in Purgatory by twenty thousand years. Reciting the prayer before Dürer’s Sudarium could produce similar results.

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