Sudarium Displayed by Two Angels
Maker
Albrecht Dürer
(German, 1471-1528)
Date1513
MediumEngraving on cream laid paper
DimensionsPlate (trimmed): 3 15/16 × 5 1/2 in. (10 × 14 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Selle
Object number1979.1
Object TypePrints
On View
Not on view About the Artwork
The famous cloth believed to portray the face of Christ, known as the Sudarium, was venerated in Rome from the 13th century onward. An important object of pilgrimage, it has many legends attached to its origins. Among them is the story of Veronica, who is said to have handed Christ a cloth on which to wipe his face while he was on the road to Calvary. An impression of Christ’s face remained on the cloth, which Catholics consider a vera icon (true image) because it was made without the intervention of a human hand. Dürer perhaps had this miraculous action of impression (of Christ’s face onto cloth) in mind when he chose to reproduce the Sudarium in printed form. In 1513, the year this engraving was made, Albrecht Dürer also produced his Engraved Passion series, a masterwork of the medium.
The famous cloth believed to portray the face of Christ, known as the Sudarium, was venerated in Rome from the 13th century onward. An important object of pilgrimage, it has many legends attached to its origins. Among them is the story of Veronica, who is said to have handed Christ a cloth on which to wipe his face while he was on the road to Calvary. An impression of Christ’s face remained on the cloth, which Catholics consider a vera icon (true image) because it was made without the intervention of a human hand. Dürer perhaps had this miraculous action of impression (of Christ’s face onto cloth) in mind when he chose to reproduce the Sudarium in printed form. In 1513, the year this engraving was made, Albrecht Dürer also produced his Engraved Passion series, a masterwork of the medium.
Resource: Paper Museums: The Reproductive Print in Europe, 1500-1800, Rebecca Zorach and Elizabeth Rodini, eds. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2005, p. 32-41.
About the Artist
Albrecht Dürer was an extraordinarily talented painter, draughtsman, and printmaker who eloquently synthesized Italian Renaissance art principles with northern European art practice. After Dürer, medieval notions of art production were swept away by a vision of the artist as an autonomous creator. He began as a goldsmith’s apprentice but by age 13— the year of his first self-portrait (executed in silverpoint)—he had already decided that he wanted to be a painter. Important influences were the painter and illustrator Michael Wolgemut (1434–1519) and the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), both of whom lived in Dürer’s native Nuremberg. His first visit to Italy was in 1494–95, to Venice; this was followed by another trip in 1505–07, by which time he already enjoyed enormous artistic renown. The year 1511 and those following were very productive for Dürer’s graphic oeuvre; his prints influenced artists in northern and southern Europe alike, in effect replacing the pattern books that until then had often been the source of artists’ visual ideas.
Albrecht Dürer was an extraordinarily talented painter, draughtsman, and printmaker who eloquently synthesized Italian Renaissance art principles with northern European art practice. After Dürer, medieval notions of art production were swept away by a vision of the artist as an autonomous creator. He began as a goldsmith’s apprentice but by age 13— the year of his first self-portrait (executed in silverpoint)—he had already decided that he wanted to be a painter. Important influences were the painter and illustrator Michael Wolgemut (1434–1519) and the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), both of whom lived in Dürer’s native Nuremberg. His first visit to Italy was in 1494–95, to Venice; this was followed by another trip in 1505–07, by which time he already enjoyed enormous artistic renown. The year 1511 and those following were very productive for Dürer’s graphic oeuvre; his prints influenced artists in northern and southern Europe alike, in effect replacing the pattern books that until then had often been the source of artists’ visual ideas.
Bernardino Fungai
1460 - 1516
Jacobus Houbraken
1740