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This seminar investigates the complex relationships between image and relic in the later Middle Ages. While the relic was usually hidden from view in lavishly decorated containers made before 1200, visual access to the relic was key for the conception of later medieval and early modern reliquaries. We will address aesthetic and material aspects of reliquaries, with a focus on translucent qualities of enamel, rock crystal, and reversed glass. Another emphasis is set on late medieval paintings with relic depositories, either in the frame or hidden in the wooden panel itself. We will discuss formal qualities of reliquaries, techniques of their making, iconography and questions about their authenticity. Those issues will be investigated by raising also larger theoretical and historiographic questions.