icon;
painting;
triptych
- Museum number
- 1998,0605.19.a
- Title
- Object: The Mother of God (from a Deesis)
- Description
-
Icon; painted; the Virgin Mary stands full-length and turned to the right in adoration of Christ who would have been depicted on the missing central panel of this Deesis composition. She wears a dark brown 'maphorion' and a blue-green tunic edged with gold. The three gold star-like ornaments on her mantle symbolize the Trinity and allude to her role in the Incarnation.
Egg tempera on wood.
- Production date
- 19thC(late)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 35.70 centimetres
-
Thickness: 2 centimetres
-
Width: 14 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
The icon belongs to a type called ‘Vrezok’ in which an older icon (or fragments thereof) was inlaid or inserted into a new panel – a common technique among the icon restoration workshops of Old Believers in Moscow and the village of Mstera. This icon together with the following one of St John the Baptist would have formed the left and right hand panels of a Deesis composition forming the centre of an iconastasis.
Published:
Cormack 2007, 125, no. 51
-
Part of deesis with 1998,0605.19b
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Made from a single panel with shallow ‘kovcheg’; two inserted battens on the reverse; a few uncertain fragments of an earlier painting were inserted into a new panel and then restored around the end of the 19th century in a style imitating a much older icon. This work was probably commissioned by an Old Believer.
- Acquisition date
- 1998
- Acquisition notes
- See 1998,0605.1 Most of the items catalogued under 1998,0605 were acquired by Sir Frank Roberts’ wife, Cella.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1998,0605.19.a
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: IC 51 (Icon Collection number)
