Zurbarán’s Veil of Veronica at the MFAH
about 66 months ago (08/17/2019)
Zurbarán’s Veil of Veronica at the MFAH | Painters' Table Skip to main content Zurbarán’s Veil of Veronica at the MFAH Submitted by Henry McMahon on August 17, 2019. The wall label next to Francisco de Zurbarán’s (1598-1664) Veil of Veronica , c. 1630s, in the Sarah Campbell Blaffer galleries of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston reminds viewers of the image’s iconography: “According to an early medieval legend, a pious woman named Veronica wiped the sweat from Christ’s face on the way to Calvary, and the image of his face was miraculously left on the cloth.” 1 If this account of the story is straightforward enough, Zurbarán’s painting of the veil complicates matters considerably. Part of the complication is in the painting’s seeming juxtaposition of two painterly languages.