Icon of St Peter
From Constantinople (modern Istabul, Turkey),
around AD 1320
This striking panel was discovered in a London
restorer's studio in the early 1980s. The image lay under
layers of whitewash and varnish on the back of a
seventeenth-century icon. It was bought by The British Museum
shortly after its
discovery.
At some point in
its life the icon was cut down all the way around, leaving the
figure off-centre with only part of his hand visible. Peter is
shown in a three-quarter view, looking to his left. The scroll he
holds bears a Greek text from I Peter 2:11: 'Beloved I
beseech you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the passions of
the flesh that wage war against your soul'. This image of
Peter, with deeply-lined eyes and thick grey hair and beard, is
that of a mature man with a personal knowledge of his
scripture.
The garments are
painted with broad strokes in pastel colours, while the hairs are
carefully delineated. The style is so similar to the mosaics and
wall-paintings found at the Chora monastery (now the Kariye Camii)
in Istanbul that it is likely that the same artist was responsible
for this icon, known as the Master of the
Chora.
D. Buckton (ed.), Byzantium: treasures of Byzant (London, The British Museum Press, 1994)
S. Mihalarias and R. Cormack, 'A major new discovery: a Byzantine panel of the fourteenth century', Zygos, 2 (1983)