An Altarpiece from St. Moritz Church [predella]: Veronica

The predella panel depicting Veronica from the Saint Moritz Church altarpiece (1514) represents Cranach working at the most intimate scale of altarpiece production: the predella strip at the base of an altarpiece typically showed narrative or devotional scenes related to the main panel above. Veronica and her sudarium — the cloth bearing the miraculous image of Christ's face — was one of the most powerful devotional images in late medieval Christianity, and the original Veronica relic in Rome drew enormous numbers of pilgrims. For Cranach, working in a city where Luther would soon question the entire relic economy, this image has retrospective significance.

Cranach renders the sudarium as a cloth held by Veronica's hands, with Christ's face depicted on it in a slightly different paint quality — acknowledging the image-within-image paradox of representing a miraculous portrait. The figure of Veronica is compact and formal for the narrow predella format. Cranach's characteristic smooth skin modeling and direct gaze engage the viewer in the devotional relationship the image was designed to create. The scale demands concentrated rather than expansive technique.