/fragment/
written by Ustinian Tilov
Catalog # 1.45
Medium: tempera on wood.
Hand-made according to the
Bulgarian Iconographic tradition and
techniques.
Possible heights:
A) 19 - 21 cm
B) 25 - 27 cm
C) 38 - 40 cm
As for the width, the proportions of the original icon will
be kept.
13 th - 14th century, a double sided icon with Crist Pantocrator on the reverse, from the Church of St. Stephen, Nessebur, tempera on wood, 118 x 97 cm.
Now at the Old Bulgarian Art department of the National Art Gallery, Sofia
The Virgin is shown half-lenght, wearing a dark blue chiton and a reddish brown, gold-edged maphorion coming well down over her eyes. The foreshortening of the face slightly flattens it, but the low forehead and the large elongated eyes lend it a special character, reminiscent of Eastern models. Christ, seated on her left arm, wears an ochre chiton hatched in gold, from under which His foot, shod in a sandal, protrudes. His face is pressed to His mother's, His left arm holding her in an embrace, while His right hand touches her face, a pose found in other Balkan ans Russian icons. Academician Miyatev has traced it and its different versions from the Smyrna Phisiologist through Italian 13th-century models such as the icon in the Siennese Church of Santa Maria del Carmine and that of B. Berlinghieri at the Florentine Academy of Art, to the Russian 15th- and 16th-century models (e.g. the Yakhrenska icon of 1482 and others),
in which the pose of Christ is the same. Newly discovered material confirms this view.
Both faces are painted over at the beginning of the 18 th century but, as an X-ray has shown, the original design of the images has been meticulously observed, except for a slight deviation in the Virgin's left eye and in the tilt of her nose. The Virgin is called Gorgoepikoos which means "she who quickly hears our prayers."