A Private Collection of Russian and Greek icons | Fine & Decorative Interiors, 23 May 2023

The forthcoming auction of Fine & Decorative Interiors includes a group of Russian and Greek icons, from a private collection, dating from the 16^th through to the 19^th century.

Here we look at a selection of icons from the collection.

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Russian icons date from AD 988 when the state and later the group of principalities known as Kievan Rus and ruled at the time by Vladimir The Great (from 980 to 1015) took the decision to adopt a new faith to replace adherence to Slavic paganism. Vladimir’s trusted advisors were sent out to various parts of Europe on a fact-finding mission, they visited Christians of the Latin Church, along with Jewish and Muslim communities, and finally ended up in Constantinople. Legend records that the beauty of Hagia Sophia so impressed Vladimir’s representatives they decided that the Byzantine Rite – also known as the Greek Rite, the liturgical practice associated with the development of the Eastern Church of Constantinople – was the faith to follow.  Vladimir himself later visited Constantinople where he arranged to marry Princess Anna, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II. Aesthetic considerations aside it is probably more likely that Byzantine Christianity was chosen by Vladimir as it would lead to a strengthening in diplomatic relations with Constantinople which dominated the Black Sea, and affected trade on Kiev’s crucial trading route accessed through the Dnieper River.

The icons created at the time of this conversion predictably followed designs and models seen in Byzantine art, the major centre for which was Constantinople. Over time, the oeuvre developed through the deployment of unique styles not used anywhere else in the Orthodox world. From the collection, lot 116, a mid 17^th century Russian (Moscow) icon of the Dormition of the Virgin, (est. £1,200-1,800 +fees) was created at a key time in the history of the design of Russian icons. The fluency, creativity and innovative traditions seen in Western European religious art had largely remained unknown in Russia prior to the 17^th century. However, Patriarch Nikon, the spiritual leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and elected in 1652, introduced changes to liturgy and practice which lead to splits in the church. Religious traditionalists continued with the existing stylisation of icons, whilst others adopted a Western European style as seen in contemporary Catholic religious art. In Byzantine and later Orthodox art, in the Dormition the dead body of the Virgin is shown, as in lot 116, on a bier or bed, behind which stands Christ holding a small body wrapped in cloth, representing the soul of the Virgin. The Apostles surround the bier, and angels, saints and prophets fill the surrounding sky.  A later 18^th century Russian icon of the Dormition is also offered in the collection, (lot 122 est. £300-500 +fees), and although it features the same crucial figures the scene is less crowded, allowing the characteristics of participants to be more clearly expressed. The Dormition of the Virgin, signed and inscribed by Ioannes Mokos (Greek, active 1680-1724), in tempera and oil on wood with a gold ground, is held by the Metropolitan Museum, New York.  Unlike the two Russian examples, buildings, positioned left and right, frame the setting and the Apostles are each shown in even more detail and without their traditional haloes.

Three of the icons in the auction are Greek, the art of painting icons in Greece had been already been practised for some nine centuries prior to the conversion of Kievan Rus in AD 988. Greek icons tend to depict individuals with more normal proportions, so that the Holy Family and Saints look rather like ordinary people. The Greek style is generally more naturalistic, whereas the Russian is more expressionistic, with characters appearing to be more emotional, full of humility and awe. The earliest Greek icon of the three is a 16^th century Cretan icon of Saint Ana with the Virgin and Saint Demetrius (lot 117, est. £6,000-8,000 +fees). The icon is the surviving top part of what must have been a taller panel, interestingly there is little or no precedence for the appearance of these figures together and so one must assume that the icon was commissioned by someone for whom the portrayal of the two was of significance. According to tradition, Ana was the mother of Mary, the Virgin, and she is venerated primarily as the patroness of mothers, grandparents, pregnant women, children and unmarried people. Saint Demetrius, the Greek Christian martyr of the early 4^th century, hailed from Thessaloniki. He was born to pious Christian parents and rose to become proconsul of the Thessalonica district, however, he met his fate in around AD 306 when he was murdered during the Christian persecutions which took place under Emperor Galerius. In the centuries following his death Demetrius was increasingly depicted as a warrior or soldier, as several military interventions to save Thessaloniki were attributed to him. The icon demonstrates the quality of painting in Crete, inspired by the coming together of Byzantine style with new influences from Venetian Italy. Crete was part of the Orthodox world but had been ruled by Venice for many years before the fall of Constantinople, however, its importance as a centre of commerce increased significantly after 1453. Many painters fled Constantinople in the face of the advancing Turks and having settled in Crete they played an important role in the development of icon painting. Cretan painting continued to develop along the lines of strict Byzantine tradition, whilst a separate school, (known as ‘Italo-Cretan’ or ‘Creto-Venetian’) was influenced by the tastes of Venetian patrons. Some of the best work produced by this school is thought to date from the 15^th and 16^th centuries.

Saint Ana also appears in lot 118, a 19^th century Russian icon, the Presentation of the Mother of God at the Temple, (est. £800-1,200 +fees).  One is struck by the stylised simplicity of and the lack of opulence in this highly important scene from the life of the Virgin. She stands on the steps of the Temple of Jerusalem as her parents, Saint Ana and Saint Joachim look on. Mary was said to be a three year old at the time but rather than being portrayed as a child (as in the oil on canvas by Titian, from 1534-38) she is shown here as a miniature adult in the tradition of medieval depictions of Jesus as a baby and young child, images which were created for devotional purposes rather than to display the skill of the artist.

Two icons, (lot 115, £400-600 +fees, and lot 120, £600-1,000 +fees) from Russia and Greece and both from the 18^th century, depict The Holy Face, or Mandylion – the image of Christ’s face miraculously imprinted on a cloth. The Mandylion was first recorded in the early 4^th century when it was reported that King Abgar of Edessa had written to Jesus asking him to visit in order to cure an illness. Rather than coming to Edessa in person, Thaddeus of Edessa, one of seventy disciples, came instead bearing a message from Jesus by which Abgar was cured.  In the late 6^th century the existence of a physical image of Christ was reported and was credited with the successful defence of Edessa against the Persians in 544. In the 10^th century the cloth was moved to Constantinople from where it  disappeared in 1204 during the sack of the city in the Fourth Crusade. It is thought the cloth might have been a relic in the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, at the time of the reign of King Louis IX (1214-1270) however, it had certainly disappeared by the time of the French Revolution. The Russian Mandylion icon is thought to possibly have been created in Mstera, a village situated approximately 60 miles from Vladimir, the ancient town located east of Moscow.  From the 17^th century Mstera was known as a thriving trade and crafts centre, its lack of decent arable land having forced its inhabitants to turn to other occupations with icon painting one of these. The Mstera style looked back to the 15^th and 16^th centuries, a time of austerity whose less lavish designs appealed to the traditionalists in the Orthodox church, the group which emerged in the light of Patriarch Nikon’s mid 17^th century innovations, as mentioned earlier.  Christ’s face in the Russian icon bears a striking stylistic resemblance to the face of Christ as depicted in an earlier Russian triptych, decorated with sapphires, rubies, spinels and pearls, dated 1637, produced by the Kremlin Armory Workshops, Moscow and currently in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Lot 123, (est. £50-800 +fees), a late 18^th century Russian icon of Saint Zosima and Saint Savvati, polychrome and parcel gilt, shows the two saints in an arched recess, with the Solovetsky Monastery, in northern Russia, in the background. Zosimas of Solovki (died 1478) was one of the founders of the monastery along with Saint Savvati  (died 1435). Not much is known about Zosima’s early life, but by 1436 he had lost both parents and had embarked on a new life as a hermit. He met the monk  Herman (died 1479), who had previously spent several years with Savvati on Solovetsky Island. Savvati had been in search of a remote location for religious contemplation and devotion and had come across the large deserted island of Solovetsky in the White Sea.  Zosima and Herman together continued the work on Solovetsky and by 1465 a new church had replaced an earlier wooden structure. Zosima was appointed as head of the establishment by the Bishop of Novgorod, to whom the monastery was subordinated. The Novgorod Republic was to invest heavily in the Slovoetsky Monastery and it became one of the richest in Russia. In 1547 Zosima was venerated as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Fine & Decorative Interiors | 1pm Tuesday 23 May 2023

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