Category: Icons
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01 Religious Icon, St. Cajetan, from Spanish Colonial Mexico, with footnotes #38
Sold for $1,400 USD in September 2022Spanish Colonial, Mexico, 19th century. A large Spanish Colonial painting on canvas depicting Saint Cajetan (San Cayetano). He wears the black robe of his order and a luxurious bejeweled chain thought to symbolize either his rejection of wealth since the Theatines took vows of poverty, his aristocratic upbringing as Count…
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01 Religious Icon, Andrei Rublev’s Trinity, with footnotes #37
The Trinity was painted on a vertically aligned board. It depicts three angels sitting at a table. On the table, there is a cup containing the head of a calf. In the background, Rublev painted a house (supposedly Abraham’s house), a tree (the Oak of Mamre), and a mountain (Mount Moriah). The figures of angels are…
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01 Religious Icon, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, with footnotes #38
The Ladder of Divine Ascent or The Ladder of Paradise. A 12th-century icon described by John Climacus. Monastery of St Catherine, Mount Sinai. St John Climacus described the Christian life as a ladder with thirty rungs. The monks are tempted by demons and encouraged by angels, while Christ welcomes them at the summit. More on this…
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07 Religious Icons, The Meister von Meßkirch’s Falkenstein Altar, Saint Anne, Saint Elmo, Saint George, Saint Christopher, Roch, John the Baptist and Andrew the Apostle, with footnotes #36
Meßkirch is named after the eleven altarpieces he painted for the St. Martin church in Meßkirch between 1536 and 1540… Please follow link for full post
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01 Religious Icon, The Meister von Meßkirch’s St. Benedict in Prayer, with footnotes #35
The image shows St. Benedict praying in a cave on Mount Subasio which he fled to to escape the debauchery associated with higher education in Rome. He led a very austere life, is known for his power against demons, and is considered the Father of Western Monasticism. More on this icon Saint Benedict founded twelve communities for…
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01 Religious Icon, A Russian icon of the holy empress Saint Alexandra, with footnotes #35
The Saint shown standing at full length, richly dressed in gem- and pearl-studded clothing and crown, and holding a cross, with Christ shown in the clouds above her Saint Alexandra was the reputed wife of Emperor Diocletian, from 284 until his abdication in 305, and secretly converted to Christianity. Jacobus de Voragine listing her name as “Alexandria”…
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01 Religious Icon, A Russian icon of Christ Pantocrator, with footnotes #34
In Christian iconography, Christ Pantocrator is a specific depiction of Christ. Pantocrator or Pantokrator, usually translated as “Almighty” or “all-powerful”, is derived from one of many names of God in Judaism. The Pantokrator, largely an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic theological conception, is less common under that name in Western (Roman) Catholicism and largely unknown to most…
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01 Religious Icon, A Russian icon of the Kazan Mother of God with gilded silver oklad, with footnotes #33
Sold for 17,500 USD on April 2014Our Lady of Kazan, also called Mother-of-God of Kazan, was a holy icon of the highest stature within the Russian Orthodox Church, representing the Virgin Mary as the protector and patroness of the city of Kazan, and a palladium of all of Russia and Rus’, known as the Holy Protectress…
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01 Religious Icon, St. Luke presenting the Mother of God with the first icon, with footnotes #32
The painted icon is covered with a metal cover, the borders with angels, set among floral garlands, raising up the image. The Apostle Luke is mostly known as one of the four Evangelists. In fact, he told us more than the other three about our Lord’s childhood, as well as about His mother Mary. It is…
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01 Religious Icon, Russian Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, with footnotes #31
The miraculous image given the title, Our Lady of Vladimir, is known as an Eleousa, the Greek word meaning, Mother of Tenderness. The Christ Child nestles tenderly close to his mother, he gazes at her and is so closely linked to her that his left arm embraces her fully. His right hand gently touches her left…
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01 Religious Icon, The Icon of Our Lady of the Sign, with footnotes #30
The surface is richly carved, gilded, and painted in imitation of an enameled silver cover and pearl robes.The Icon of Our Lady of the Sign is the term for a particular type of icon of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), facing the viewer directly, depicted either full length or half, with her hands raised in the orans…
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01 Religious Icon, A Russian icon of the Deesis, with footnotes #29
In the Deesis, the Pantocrator is in the center, to his right is the Mother of God in an attitude of intercession: she represents the Church, brings back to Christ the prayer of humanity and covers it with her maternal protection. After the Virgin, the Baptist has the place of honor next to Christ, to…
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01 Religious Icon, MOTHER OF GOD “MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD”, with footnotes #28
This icon with the Virgin enthroned in an oval reserve holding a book open to the words of the Magnificat in Cyrillic reading “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,” the silver oklad chased and repoussé with Neo-classical ornament, struck with mark of assayer Aleksei Vikhliaev, the Cyrillic…
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2 Religious Icons, Barnaba da Modena and Veneto-Cretan Icons of the Madonna and Child, with footnotes #27
The panel, probably originally rectangular, was cut at the top following the profile of the moldings in relief. Central element of a polyptych. The Nursing Madonna, Virgo Lactans, or Madonna Lactans, is an iconography of the Madonna and Child in which the Virgin Mary is shown breastfeeding the infant Jesus. In Italian it is called…
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1 Religious Icon, DUTCH MASTER’s Crowning of Mary, with footnotes #25
Surrounded by a cloud aureole God the Father (to the left) and Christ (to the right) are sitting on a throne bank with high rests. God the Father is dressed in a coat of brocade and has a tiara on his head. Christ wears a green-lined red coat and holds the globe in his left…
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07 Icons, RELIGIOUS ART – Icons from the 14 and 15 Centuries, with footnotes – 5
The arrangement and combination of subjects in this devotional triptych were common throughout the Florentine Trecento and early Quattrocento, a tried and tested formula which found its origin in Bernardo Daddi’s Bigallo Triptych of 1333, in the Museo del Bigallo, Florence. The left wing depicts the Nativity; the right wing shows the Crucifixion. The pinnacles…
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2 Religious Icon, Virgin of the Burning Bush and the Theotokos of Unburnt Bush with footnotes #22
The subject of Our Lady of the Burning Bush is based on the Old Testament prophecy of the incarnation of Christ. Such theologians as St Gregory of Nyssa and Theodoret of Cyrrhus regarded Moses’s vision of the burning bush as a symbol and prototype of the Virgin Mary and the Immaculate Conception. The iconography of…
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1 Religious Icon, 19th C. Russian Icon of St. Alexander Svirsky, with footnotes #21
St. Alexander Svirsky spent much of time of his life as a monk, including some period of total isolation from society. In 1506, Serapion, Archbishop of Novgorod, appointed him Hegumen of the Trinity monastery, which later became known as Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, at the place of the saint’s eremitic life between Roschinsky and Holy lakes.A rendition of…
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1 Religious Icon, 19th C. Russian Icon of Saints Catherine , Natalya, Ann the Prophetess, Ljubov, John, and Alexander and Saint Anne, with footnotes #20
An icon presenting an ensemble of blessed saints, including Catherine , Natalya, Ann the Prophetess, Ljubov (Love, more commonly interpreted as Charity), John, and Alexander standing in two rows. The seventh saint is most likely John the Evangelist. Each saint is identified with a gold on blue banner, all beneath Saint Anne in the celestial realm aloft billowing clouds donning…
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1 Religious Icon, 18th C. Russian Icon, Christ Emmanuel, with footnotes #19
The text beneath may refer to a passage of Isaiah that Christ read in the synagogue of Nazareth, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the afflicted”. The prophet Isaiah coined the term Emmanuel which means God is with us, and this…