Altarpiece of the Holy Blood (1499-1505) in the St. Jakobskirche, Rothenburg ob der Tauber
It's a glorious masterpiece of woodcarving created by Tilman Riemenschneider. The reliquary is a metal cross with a rock-crystal capsule at the center that contains the Holy Blood. His workshop was in the episcopal city of Würzburg in Franconia (present-day Bavaria). Kenneth Clark said that the Riemenschneider figures “clearly present the character of the northern people at the end of the fifteenth century. Firstly, the earnest of personal piety, and secondly, the serious approach to life itself.”
