Measuring the True Cross at the Cistercian Stift Heiligenkreuz. Unrecorded.

[True Cross] / [Metric relic]. Die Länge des heil. Kreuz Holzes is 9 Zohl, die Breite 1 Zohl, das obere Zwerch Holz. 2 ½ Zohl, das untere 4 ½ Zohl. Wahre Abbildung des heil. Kreuzes welches in dem hohlöb. Stüfft. u[nd] Kloster heil. Kreuz im Walde, Sac. Ord. Cisterc. Sorgfältig Verwahret u[nd] Andächtig verehret wird. S.l. [likely Vienna]: signed in plate but illegible, s.a. [18th-century]. [13.3 x 7.5 cm], [1] f. etching. Narrow margins, remnants of mounting on verso which show through on image. 
 
 
Unrecorded 18th-century devotional etching depicting the relic and reliquary of the True Cross kept at the Stift Heiligenkreuz at the Cistercian Abbey of the Holy Cross in the Wienerwald (Niederösterreich). The print is a type of ‘metric relic,’ i.e., a print that communicates the dimensions of a holy item so that the holder of the print might virtually venerate the item with greater effectiveness. Here the dimensions of the True Cross fragments are not depicted at 1:1 scale, but their relative measurements are given (in Zohl, i.e., inches).
 
The relic of the True Cross at Stift Heiligenkreuz has been attested since 1188. Abbot Robert Leeb (1728-1755) was a special promoter of the relic and commissioned the elaborate Baroque reliquary depicted in this print. The etching was very likely made during Leeb’s abbacy.
 
‘Metric relics’ offered the faithful a connection to Christ, Mary, saints, holy places, etc., by replicating for contemplation the precise size of, e.g., Christ’s lance wound, the Holy Nail, His height, the dimensions of the Holy Sepulcher, etc. Metric relics thus form a category of some importance to the history of art, with its emphasis on chains of orthodox copies passed down in the form of icons, iconographs, models, and the like. Metric relics proliferated in manuscript during the Middle Ages and were quickly produced in print with the rise of 15th-century woodcut technology with its ability to produce identical copies accurately reproducing the measure of the objects in question.
 
 
This item is not located by OCLC, KVK, or the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, nor have I encountered it in the literature on the Stift Heiligenkreuz. Horst Heres reproduces a similar print in his Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett (p. 101, ill. 155).
 
* Johann Nepomuk Weis, Urkunden des Cistercienser-Stiftes Heiligenkreuz im Wiener Walde; X. Barbier de Montault, “Les mesures de devotion,” Revue de l’art chrétien, vol. 32 (1881), pp. 360-419.