LOT 0355

Painted Wooden Icon with Christ Pantocrator with Silver Basma

RUSSIA, 16TH-17TH CENTURY A.D.

11 3/8 x 9 3/4 in. (983 grams, 29 x 25 cm).

With raised right hand, the left hand holding the Gospel, dressed in red tunic and dark-green garment (himation); covered with an elaborate silver oklad with repoussé and chased decoration, mounting bar to reverse, silver-coloured metal with reserved epigraphic panels and circular void to reveal painted icon beneath; separate two-piece gilt revetment, the upper nimbus with pierced edge and reserved capitals, set with four stones; the background panel bearing reserved tendril ornament; incised Cyrillic inscription 'Г[оспо]дь Вседержит[ель]' (= Lord Almighty) on the sides of Jesus; the Gospel with Cyrillic inscription, red foil embroidered in gold; incised three letters in Cyrillic capitals on the gilt nimbus 'ТѠ Ο И' (The only living One).

Acquired on the UK art market.
Private collection, London, UK.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12926-246332.

Cf. for similar pieces of Oklad in Various, Russian Silver of the Fourteenth to early Twentieth Centuries from Moscow Kremlin Reserve, (in Russian and English), Moscow, 1984, pls.42,49 (nimbus), 46 (crescent); for a similar icon of the Pantocrator see Sulikowska-Bełczowska, A., ‘The Cult of Old Believers Domestic Icons and the Beginning of Old Belief in Russia in the 17th-18th Centuries’ in Religions, 2019, 10, 574, pp.1-17, fig.2, p.3; see also an icon with the bust of Christ, in Hermitage (inv. ERI-508) in Piatnitsky, Y., Baddeley, O., Brunner, E., Mundell Mango, M., Sinai, Byzantium, Russia, Orthodox Art from the Sixth to Twentieth Century, London, 2000, fig. R26, p.274.