The Resurrection – The Harrowing of Hades, with Church Feasts in 12 border scenes

The centerpiece of the given antique Russian icon bears the depiction of the Resurrection – The Harrowing of Hades, which includes both, the historical religious icon image – the Rising from the Tomb and the symbolic – the Harrowing of Hades. The number of scenes is brought to a minimum: in the lower right corner, we see only one Gospel narrative – the Revelation of Christ to the Apostles on the Sea of Galilee (John 21: 1-25). The surrounding border scenes are placed in chronological order, in a highly traditional manner.

The material and artistic traits of this hand-painted icon unravel the artist’s desire to add a touch of antiquity to the work. The master iconographer chooses an old, rough wood panel for the icon and skillfully adds artificial hazing that covers the entire surface in an ‘all too smooth’ fashion. The artist’s orientation on Russian icon art of the first half of the 17^th century clearly comes through in the traditionalist iconography and the religious icon’s artistic traits: the subtle color scheme, the rather free composition of the border scenes, the miniature-painting style, the character of the architectural staffage, the small lights of the mountainsides.

In the second half of the 19^th century, the increasing interest in Medieval art drove iconographers to a new form of trade – creating forged medieval hand-painted icons for the just-born antique market. Mstyora artists were especially prominent in this field. They not only knew Old Russian icon art with its schools and variations but also laid the foundation of the modern-day religious icon restoration techniques. Thus, they brilliantly imitated the technique, style, and iconography, as well as skillfully “aged” hand-painted icons. Using centuries-old boards and dark pigments, they imitated the darkened varnish, aged the paintwork, imitated hazing with graphic work, and forged the “author’s” autographs and inscriptions. Numerous green and brown tones in the color pallet also “give away” the recognizable style of Mstyora’s religious icon painters.

The oklad cover was selected for this antique Russian icon after it was complete, which also indicates the religious icon painter’s desire to “age” the piece. It consists of four plates (brought together at a slight angle, with one plate coming on to another), which is typical for Medieval-period pieces (in the Imperial era they were replaced by whole-piece oklads). The oklad frame finds numerous analogies among the 17^th-century covers but lacks the tall towers and is decorated with quite a simple type of ornamentation – thin strands of “pearls,” “stones” (diamond-like crystal shapes), and small stars, which indeed imitates the more precious oklads. The small surface is, in turn, decorated with sparsely placed rosettes. The Harrowing of Hades scene is separated from the border scenes by the frame with an engraved ornament.