Bearing of the Cross
Iconography: Christ’s passage to the Calvary (the Way to Golgotha, the Carrying of the Cross)
Date: XIX century. Second half of the 19th century.
Origin: From a church at the village of Yarlykovo, Ivanovsky region. Received by the museum in the 1960s from a scientific expedition around the Ivanovo region.
Material: Wood, levkas, tempera, gold
Dimensions: height 36,7 cm, width 29,3 cm
A Roman soldier is hurrying Christ bent under the burden of the heavy Cross. Simon of Cyrene is helping Christ to carry the Cross. At the left are the holy women, at the right are Roman soldiers and high priests. A building in the background still has predominantly Gothic and Orient features, which is the distinctive feature of Palekh icon-painting of the early 19th century.
The icon is noted for masterfully painted light stepped mount with white ledges and conditional vegetation. The icon is from the Passion tier of an iconostasis. The icon is executed in a typically Palekh soft manner of facial painting in several coats of ochre laid over olive sankir with weak rouge and dotted white after-treatment. The prevailing colors in this subdued color palette are ochre, reddish-orange and pink tones and the shadings of brown, green and blue.
Registration number ГМПИ 3589. ДИ-544-И. © The State Museum of Palekh Art
Bibliography:
1. Палехская школа 1923-1950. Лаковые миниатюры иконописцев. Мюнхен, 2011. № 8. С. 24-25, 40.
General view