Nun's work. Holy Face: Painted amulet on silk, with relics & a painted frame.

[Klosterarbeiten] / [Painted amulet]. [Holy Face or Caput Christi, framed and with relics]. [Likely Bavaria or South Tyrol]: s.n., c. 1790s-1810s. [27.4 x 21.7 cm exterior of frame], [1] gouache painting on silk, with gold pigment, applied textiles, golden wire and ribbon, including relics labeled with letterpress slips, in a painted frame which is glazed. Craquelure and minor pigment loss on painted frame. Only minor toning to the silk. Colors still fresh and vibrant. Very well preserved.
 
 
Extraordinary late-18th- or early 19th-century amuletic painting depicting the Holy Face of Christ. At the foot of the apotropaic image is a row of ten relics labeled with letterpress strips (the early martyr saints Honoratus, Justin, Hortulanus, Simplicius, Victoria, Bonus, Celestinus, Speciosa, Bonosus, and the milk of the Virgin Mary). The fine painted frame—decorated with flowers and the Sacred Names of Jesus and Mary—is consistent with the work of nuns in Bavaria or the South Tyrol.
 
This distinctive image—showing the suffering or dead Christ with bruised and bleeding wounds, hooded eyes, and a golden halo radiating from the top and sides of his head—is ultimately related to the well-known depictions of Veronica’s Veil (the Sudarium), the Mandylion of Edessa, and even relic shrouds such as those of Turin and Besançon. This gouache painting on linen is an especially gruesome interpretation of the Holy Face.
 
Adolph Spamer described and illustrated an example of this type of apotropaic object—meant to be carried on one’s person or displayed in the home—in his classic Das kleine Andachtsbild vom XIV bis zum XX Jahrhundert (1930; p. 314, no. and plate CLXXIX), localizing it to Tyrol (the area around Innsbruck, Austria) in the years just before 1800. Horst Heres, in his Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett (2007; p. 15., ill. 4) illustrates a similar version of the image painted on parchment. He follows Spamer’s localization and dating. 
 
 
*A. Spamer, Das kleine Andachtsbild vom XIV bis zum XX Jahrhundert; Horst Heres, Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett.