Saint Nicholas with Angels & Miracles
Tempera and gold on gesso, on carved limewood panel. This icon is the earliest known version of a very rare iconographic composition. It was sold by the Soviet government for hard currency in the late 1920s and is the subject of an in-depth study by Prof. Engelina Smirnova, reproduced here in the ‘extended entry’.
Origin
Russia, Novgorod
Date
ca. 1550
Height: 54 cm
Width: 42 cm
Provenance
Handwritten label on the back "Muzei izyashnykh isskustv" (the name of the Pushkin Museum before 1932). Most likely sold at Torgsin, the Soviet foreign currency shops that existed 1931-6.
Purchased in Russia in the 1930s by American Collector
Ken Farmer Auctions, 03/05/2009, Mixed sale, lot 290
Acquired there by AXIA
Exhibited / Published
Museum of Russian Icons Journal of Icon Studies: Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker with Angels and Miracles, January 2012