Deesis with selected saints
Iconography: Deisus row, Selected saints
Date: XV century. The late 15th – early 16th centuries.
Iconographic school/art center: The Novgorod school, northern province.
Origin: From the Church of the Assumption, Kondopoga.
Material: Wood, tempera
Dimensions: height 69 cm, width 48,2 cm
This type of icon (with the Deesis in the upper register and en face figures of the saints in two lower registers) is very rare, even though it looks like a festival tablet icon. The icon was possibly painted using an icon-painter’s manual, from which the iconographer might have copied rare iconographic details such as the backless throne of the Savior and a closed Gospel in His hands. The color scheme with traditional “Novgorod” colors (dark-green, reed and ochre), energetic outlines of clothes and square-built figures betray the influence of Novgorodian icons. And yet, the simplicity of painting, the execution of faces, noted for transparent layers of ochre, and dull colors indicate a provincial origin of the icon.
Inv. № И-478. © Republic of Karelia Museum of Fine Arts
Bibliography: СD ROM «Иконопись Карелии». Музей изобразительных искусств Республики Карелия. 2002
General view