‘Blood Wonder’ miniatures on cut parchment.

[Walldürn Blood Wonder] / [Minature painting]. Das Heilige blut. [With:] Daß H: blut. S.l.: s.n, s.a. [18th century]. [13.9 x 8.4 cm & 13.1 x 7.9 cm], [2] f. miniatures on cut parchment, with gold pigment. Some staining and wrinkling, white pigments oxidized on one of the miniatures.
 
 
Two quite fine 18th-century ‘cut parchment’ (a.k.a., Weißschnitt, Spitzenbild, canivet) miniatures depicting one of the more bizarre miraculous images of the Middle Ages: the ‘Blood Wonder’ (Blutwunder) of Walldürn.
 
The Walldürn miracle occurred in 1330, when the priest Heinrich Otto accidentally overturned a chalice of consecrated wine. The wine/blood stained the linen corporal (altar cloth) with the image of the crucified Christ and 11 heads of Christ crowned with thorns. Astounded, Heinrich Otto hid the cloth away for fifty years, revealing it only on his deathbed. 
 
A robust pilgrimage to Walldürn—located in the modern Neckar-Odenwald district of Baden-Württemberg—began in the first decade of the 15th century and reached its peak following the completion of the pilgrimage church (Wallfahrtsbasilika St. Georg) in 1728. Today the miraculous cloth has faded so severely that it appears to be entirely blank, and so pilgrims can visualize the relic only by having faith in the chain of copied images (like this one) that descend from the original. 
 
Note that the text here does not explicitly mention Walldürn but simply refers to the subject as the “Holy Blood.” Both miniatures depict the miraculous cloth, while one of them adds to this a depiction of the miracle in progress.
 
Devotional miniatures on parchment or paper cut with a penknife in imitation of lace are sometimes called Spitzenbilder, canivets or Weißschnittbilder (for their history, see H. Heres, pp. 13-32 and A. Spamer, plates LIX-CI). 
 
 
*H. Heres, Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett; A. Spamer, Das kleine Andachtsbild vom XIV bis zum XX Jahrhundert; Wolfgang Brückner, Die Verehrung des Heiligen Blutes in Walldürn; M. Domarus, Walldürner Wallfahrt in sechs Jahrhunderten.