German, probably Lower Rhine, circa 1500

European private collection, acquired in the 1980s

According to the Legenda aurea, when Veronica wiped Christ’s face on the road to Calvary, his likeness was miraculously imprinted on the cloth. Venerated as the Vera Icon (the true portrait of Christ), the relic is housed in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

This finely carved oak relief of Veronica’s veil presented by two angels is likely to have formed the predella of an altarpiece. While this iconography was frequently found in painted altarpieces around 1500, its representation in sculpture is more rare.

The Angels of the present relief find stylistic parallels in carvings from late 15th-century Cologne, indicating a likely origin in the Lower Rhine region. Compare, for example, the relief with a flute-playing Angel by Master Tilman in the Schnütgen Museum, Cologne (inv. no. A 931) and a pair of kneeling Angels in the same museum (inv. nos. A 553 a and b), which exhibit analogous hairstyles.

RELATED LITERATURE

R. Karrenbrock (ed.), Die Holzskulpturen des Mittelalters II, 1: 1400-1540, Teil 1: Köln, Westfalen, Norddeutschland, Cologne, 2001, nos. 47 and 52/53