Holy Blood of Weingarten by Cornelis Galle (1615-1678). 1 copy worldwide.

Cornelis Galle the Younger / [Holy Blood of Weingarten]. S. Sanguis Christi In Monasterio Weingartensi. Gebett. Von dem H. Blut Christi. O Her: Jesu Christe der du von Him[m]eln … S.l. [likely Antwerp]: “C. Galle,” s.a. [17th century]. [9.6 x 7.2 cm], [1] f. engraving. Well preserved.
 
 
Very rare (1 example worldwide: Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht) German-language devotional engraving by the Antwerp printmaker Cornelis Galle the Younger (1615-1678). The print depicts the reliquary containing the Blood of Christ famously housed at Weingarten Abbey (near Ravensburg, in Baden-Württemberg), which is depicted in the distance.
 
Saints Francis and Benedict are shown kneeling in veneration of the relic, and at the foot of the print is the German prayer “On the Holy Blood of Christ.”
 
The Blood of Christ was collected at the Crucifixion by St. Longinus, who preserved it in a box, which later was buried at Mantua. It was rediscovered in 804 but reburied during the Norman invasions. In 1048 it was again rediscovered and divided into three parts, one of which remained at Mantua, one of which was sent to Rome, and one of which was given to Emperor Henry III. Henry’s share was passed down and came to Weingarten in the 1090s. It is venerated in a procession (the Blutritt) on the Friday after the feast of the Ascension (see the monumental N. Kruse & H. U. Rudolf, 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung in Weingarten, 1094-1994, 3 vols.).
 
This print is not recorded in the Galle volumes of New Hollstein or in Kruse & Rudolf, but a copy on vellum is preserved at the Museum Catharijneconvent (RMCC dp221) where it is the verso of a bidprent commemorating a death in 1821, a fact which suggests that the plate survived at least into the nineteenth century. A copy is also illustrated (without comment) in Rond den Heerd: Een leer- en leesblad voor alle lieden, vol. 7, no 22 (27 April 1872), p. 189. A similar design by Cornelis Galle, in which Francis and Benedict are replaced by Welf IV and Judith of Flanders, is better known (see Kruse & Rudolf, vol. 1, Abb. 185, and British Museum 1891,0414.708).