Wittenberg Reliquary Book (Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch)
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.)
Classification
book
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
62565
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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 Pu...
About the Artist
Lucas Cranach the Elder · 1472–1553
Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472-1553) was one of the most prominent German Renaissance painters and a key artistic figure of the Protestant Reformation. Born in Kronach, Franconia, to the painter Hans Maler, Cranach began his career in Vienna around 1502, where he became one of the founders of the Danube School, a movement characterized by expressive landscape painting and emotional force. His ea...