Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Sudarium Held by One Angel

Albrecht Dürer

Date

1516

Medium

Etching on iron

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This unusual print, done while Albrecht Dürer was experimenting with the looseness of the etched line, captures the trembling, visionary state people aspired to reach through prayer. Christ's face is barely discernible on the wafting Sudarium, which in legend was imprinted when Veronica wiped Christ's brow. (She can be seen in Dürer's two Christ Carrying the Cross prints, also in this exhibition.) By the twelfth century the Sudarium was in St. Peter's in Rome, part of a stream of relics arriving in Western Europe from the East. The relics were concrete proof of Christ's redemptive act, and had an important role in inflaming Passion devotion. Germany

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