Auffindung des heiligen Kreuzes

The Master of 1456's Auffindung des heiligen Kreuzes (Finding of the True Cross), painted in 1455 and now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, depicts the legend of Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, who according to tradition traveled to Jerusalem and discovered the True Cross — the actual wood of Christ's crucifixion — buried on Golgotha in 326 AD. The Finding of the True Cross was one of the most important subjects in medieval Christian iconography, connected to the veneration of the relic and to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14.

Tempera and oil on panel. The Finding of the Cross scene typically shows Helena and her retinue overseeing the excavation that uncovers the three crosses of Calvary, with the miraculous identification of the True Cross through the healing of a sick person.