Master of Saint Veronica, 'Saint Veronica with the Sudarium', about 1420

According to her legend, Saint Veronica saw Christ fall as he carried his Cross to the site of his crucifixion. Taking pity on him, she offered her linen handkerchief (called a sudarium) to wipe the sweat from his face. When he returned it, an image of his face was imprinted upon it.

The sudarium, thought to be the only true portrait of Christ, became one of the holiest relics in the Catholic Church – Veronica’s name actually derives from the Latin phrase vera icon, meaning ‘true image’. A sudarium thought to be Veronica’s is conserved in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The legend of the sudarium inspired paintings like this, where Veronica holds up the miraculously imprinted cloth. This picture is very similar to one in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich that gives the anonymous painter his identity as the Master of Saint Veronica.

The Munich painting is more elaborate and includes groups of angels with colourful wings seated on the ground. There are traces of the draperies and the wings of flying angels here, not painted but punched with little dots into the gold on either side of Veronica’s head, but they are now so worn they are barely visible. The Munich painting shows Christ with darker skin, common for images of this kind, but wearing a crown of thorns, which was borrowed from images of the Man of Sorrows that, by the fifteenth century, had begun to replace the more simple image of Christ depicted here.

The design of the decorated border–created by indenting the gold leaf background with shaped tools – is the same in both paintings, which were probably made at around the same time in the 1420s. In our panel both Christ and Veronica have gold haloes inscribed with their names in Latin, whereas in the Munich panel Christ’s head is surrounded by a gilded cross. The surrounding decoration – most clearly visible in Christ’s halo – is detailed and delicate. This sensitivity to symmetry and graceful lines also features in the fine draping folds of Veronica’s mantle as it falls over her head, and in the gathered fabric at her neck, fastened with a pin.