Votive Image of St Walburga [Germany (Eichstätt?), early 19th century]

miniature, 83x110mm, apparently on vellum, mounted on linen, applied with beadwork flowers, purl, flat metal-work motifs and embroidered with silk thread, frame probably original

This unusual image shows St Walburga/Walpurga, an 8th-century English missionary and abbess of Heidenheim whose relics are at Eichstätt, where they exude a liquid, believed by the faithful to have healing properties: in the image this is shown as white drops falling into a receptacle below her body. For similar iconography see the Older Walburga Tapestry, made in Nuremberg c.1460-64, now at the Diözesanmuseum, Eichstätt, and Heilige Walburga, hilft aus aller Not, exh.cat., Eichstätt, 2000, fig.82. Walburga's main feast-day is 25 February, but the eve of the feast of her canonisation-date, 1 May, is still celebrated today in several central and northern European countries, on 30 April, known as 'Walpurgisnacht'.