Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Click to view high resolution image

Title: St. Veronica
Creator: Memling, Hans, painter
Description: Veronica is identified with a number of women from Christ’s life, including the one who he wiped his brow on the way to Calvary. According to the cloth (known as the Sudarium) was miraculously imprinted with Christ’s face. References to the veil occur as early as the 300s, but the accounts do not make specific reference to Christ’s Passion until the Middle Ages. The Vatican Basilica acquired a cloth supposed to be the Sudarium in the twelfth century, and it was a major draw to pilgrims. The faithful could receive indulgences (reducing time in purgatory or the full remission of sins) for praying before the relic itself or before images of it. Here Veronica, dressed in fifteenth-century clothing, displays the holy face to the viewer. This is the obverse side of the right wing of a diptych.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Rights: Public Domain
Subject (See Also): Jesus Christ- Passion Veronica’s Veil
Geographic Area: Low Countries
Century: 15
Date: ca. 1470-1475
Related Work: Reverse of right panel: Chalice of St. John the Evangelist: http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=41386.1&detail=none; Left diptych panel, obverse: St. John the Baptist, Munich, Alte Pinakothek: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/hans-memling/diptych-of-john-the-baptist-and-st-veronica-st-john-the-baptist-the-left-wing; Obverse of left panel: Vanitas, Munich, Alte Pinakothek: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/hans-memling/st-john-and-veronica-diptych-reverse-of-the-left-wing
Current Location: Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.46.a
Original Location:
Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Paintings
Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Wood; Oil
Donor: Layman; probably Bernardo Bembo, Venetian humanist and politician
Height/Width/Length(cm): 24.4 cm/31.2 cm/
Inscription:
Related Resources: