The Holy Face: Amulet painted on linen. Very rare.

[Painted amulet]. [Holy Face or Caput Christi]. [Likely Tyrol], s.n., c. 1790s. [9.4 x 6.2 cm], [1] gouache painting on linen. Toned, minor stains, initials (“F. A”) in manuscript on verso. 
 
 
Very rare late-18th-century painted amulet depicting the Holy Face of Christ. This distinctive image—showing the suffering or dead Christ with bruised and bleeding wounds, hooded eyes, and an orange halo radiating from the top and sides of his head—is ultimately related to the well-known depictions of Veronica’s Veil (the Sudarium), the Mandylion of Edessa, and even relic shrouds such as those of Turin and Besançon. This gouache painting on linen is an especially gruesome interpretation of the Holy Face.
 
Adolph Spamer described and illustrated an example of this type of apotropaic object—meant to be carried on one’s person or displayed in the home—in his classic Das kleine Andachtsbild vom XIV bis zum XX Jahrhundert (1930; p. 314, no. and plate CLXXIX), localizing it to Tyrol (the area around Innsbruck, Austria) in the years just before 1800. Horst Heres, in his Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett (2007; p. 15., ill. 4) illustrates a similar version of the image painted on parchment. He follows Spamer’s localization and dating. 
 
 
*A. Spamer, Das kleine Andachtsbild vom XIV bis zum XX Jahrhundert; Horst Heres, Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett.