Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553)
printed by Johannes Grunenberg (German, active 1508-1525)
Wittenberg Reliquary Book (Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch)
INV-6256
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553)
printed by Johannes Grunenberg (German, active 1508-1525)1510
Wittenberg Reliquary Book (Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch)
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553) printed by Johannes Grunenberg (German, active 1508-1525) →bookprints and drawing
Date
1510
Medium
Woodcut engraving and letterpress on cream laid paper, in original limp brown goatskin with wrap-around fore-edge flap, decorated with a blind outer fillet frame with intersecting interior blind lines
Dimensions
Folio: 19.3 × 14 cm (7 5/8 × 5 9/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Clarence Buckingham Collection
Lucas Cranach produced this souvenir catalogue to promote the prized collection of relics and reliquaries of his patron, Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony. Copies were printed on paper and more luxurious vellum, although the paper printings are now scarcer. The sequence of woodcuts walks pilgrims through every stage of the yearly viewing; each relic offered a hundred days of indulgence. Pilgrims witnessing them all would have amassed an impressive 500,500 days (1,371 years) of respite from Purgatory. Yet Frederick’s protégé, the radical Martin Luther, would soon speak out against the practice of granting indulgences, and the relic collection would be shown for the last time in 1522. The pages visible here depict Mary Magdalene’s hair, nineteen particles of Saint Cecilia, and other relics.