Christ’s robe exhibited for first time in 155 years: Unrecorded woodcut on silk.

[Seamless Robe of Christ at Trier]. Abbild. Des H. Rocks Christi so im Hoh. Dohm zu Trier aufbehalten wirdt. Anger den 9 7ber 1810. S.l. [Trier?]: S.n., s.a. [1810]. [14.5 x 8.7 cm], [1] f. woodcut on silk. Minor edge fraying, remnants of mounting on verso. 
 
 
Unrecorded woodcut—here printed on silk—commemorating the 1810 exhibition in Trier of the seamless robe of Christ, the first time that the relic had been shown to the public since 1655. The text states that this is the “Image of the Holy Tunic of Christ as it is kept in the Cathedral of Trier” and notes that the relic was displayed on 9 September 1810.
 
The Holy Tunic (Heilige Rock) of Trier, present in the city since the 12th century, was long identified with the seamless robe of Christ described in John 19:23, a garment that was said to have been rediscovered by St. Helena during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326-328. The Tunic was first formally ‘exposed’ to a crowd in 1512 under the orders of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. This began a tradition of annual display which lasted for five years. Thereafter, the Tunic was shown every six or seven years until 1545 in accordance with a papal bull of Leo X that granted a plenary indulgence to pilgrims attending the exposition. The Schmalkaldic War (1545-47) halted the tradition, and the next official pilgrimage was not until 1655, after which the event was again suspended.
 
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the Holy Tunic was taken to Augsburg for safe keeping. Bishop of Trier and Napoleonic appointee Charles Mannay eventually negotiated the relic’s return to Trier, which was celebrated in 1810 with the first public exposition since 1655.  
 
“Apart from the imperial coronation of 1804, no religious event in Napoleonic Europe could match the scope and significance of the great pilgrimage to Trier in 1810. Between 9 and 27 September, more than 200,000 visitors rushed to this provincial city of roughly 10,000 inhabitants to venerate one of Christianity’s most prestigious relics … Catholics journeyed to Trier from the city’s immediate hinterland, but also from other parts of the Rhineland, Luxembourg, and Lorraine. It was a gigantic show of piety, deeply embedded in an imperial context, officially planned and presided over by the French bishop of Trier, Charles Mannay, who served as one of Napoleon’s foremost ecclesiastical counsellors. Pilgrim participation exceeded all expectations” (K. Harrer, pp. 773-74).
 
The two subsequent expositions (1844 & 1891) saw the number of pilgrims double and redouble: 700,000 people made the pilgrimage during the showing of 1844 (which inspired the schismatic Deutschkatholiken) and almost 2 million in 1891.
 
Devotional items from the 1844 and subsequent pilgrimages are rather common, but the 1810 event—a surprise success—produced rather little material, and very little has survived today.
 
This woodcut—be it on silk or paper—is not located by OCLC, KVK, Omnia, or the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, nor have I seen it reproduced in the literature on the Trier Tunic.
 
*K. Harrer, “Mass Pilgrimage and the Usable Empire in a Napoleonic Borderland,” The Historical Journal, vol. 66 (2023), pp. 773-94; E. Aretz, et al., eds., Der Heilige Rock zu Trier: Studien zur Geschichte und Verehrung der Tunika Christi; E. A. Plater, The Holy Coat of Trèves: A Sketch of its History, Cultus, and Solemn Exposition.