Black Christ of the White Nuns of Wyck: "It touched the miraculous crucifix."
[Augustinian nuns] / [Touch relic] / Jan Baptist van den (II) Sande. Est Touche au Saint Crucifix Cecy est le Vray Pourtrait au Crucifix Miraculex chez les Religieuses dames blanches a Mastricht le quel est crue dune noix a la hauteur de six piede. S.l. [Antwerp]: Jo. van San., s.a. [c. 1700]. [9.1 x 7.0 cm; 11.3 x 9.0 cm the backing sheet], [1] engraving with contemporary hand-color and gold pigment. Laid to waste paper with writing on verso and double bounding lines on recto, minor edge wear to backing paper, minor toning to print, engraved signature partially legible.
Very rare late 17th- or early 18th-century engraving—here in contemporary hand-color with gold pigment—depicting the ‘Black Christ’ of Wyck (“Zwarte Christus van Wyck”) formerly kept at the convent of the Augustinian “White” nuns of Maastricht (Witte Vrouwenklooster te Maastricht). The engraving is the work of the Antwerp artist Jan Baptist van den (II) Sande (c. 1650-1713), who specialized in small-scale devotional prints of this sort.
Flanked by putti, the inscription at the bottom of the print reads, “It touched the Holy Crucifix. This is the true likeness of the miraculous crucifix of the Dames Blanches at Maastricht, which grew from a walnut to the height of six feet.”
The wood crucifix is today considered to be a sculpture of 13th-century manufacture, likely made in the in the Low Countries in imitation of an Italian model. The legend, however, states that a 13th-century Crusader, upon returning home, gave his daughter a walnut that he had collected in Jerusalem, which she soon piously planted. The Black Christ miraculously sprouted from this nut (see, Le Christ noir à Wyck). The crucifix was preserved at the cloister of the White Nuns until their dissolution in 1796. By 1804 the sculpture was transferred to St. Martin’s in Maastricht, where it remains today.
The Black Christ of Wyck was celebrated for its healing powers and was sometimes depicted surrounded by ex-votos donated by those who sought its help.
This engraving is not merely illustrative but was itself imbued with some of the Black Christ’s wonderous healing power by having been touched to the sculpture: The inscription notes that, “It touched the Holy Crucifix.” The pilgrim could thus return home with the print and expect that it might improve their ailments.
Examples of this print are preserved in the Thijs Collection at the University of Amsterdam (RG PK: Thijs KP 26.19) and the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (ABM dp2209). Other versions of the subject are known.
*Alfons Thijs, Antwerpen, internationaal uitgeverscentrum van devotieprenten, 17de-18de eeuw (=Miscellanea Neerlandica, vol. VII [1993]); Le Christ noir à Wyck: Souvenir pieux de lostension des S. reliques à Maestricht.