Figure 4. Handwritten Soviet
museum label (detail of back).
raised borders that, following the old, early Russian tradition, are slightly narrower at the
sides than at the top and bottom. Here and there under the layer of priming you can see
the canvas (in the lower margin and the upper part of the right-hand margin), but it is not
clear whether it covers the whole surface of the board.
On the reverse of the panel are two scraps from a paper label, with a penciled inscription
with the words “Музей изя… куств” (Figure 4), i.e., probably the “Museum of Fine Art
named after A.S. Pushkin”, as the Pushkin Museum in Moscow was called at that time.
The inscription is in Soviet orthography and probably indicated the place where the icon
was kept temporarily prior to entering an antique shop for sale. It would be a miracle if
anyone managed to find archival documents about the icon’s provenance. Most likely it
went up for sale not from a church or large museum, but from a private collection.
Figure 5. Detail: The center of
the composition.
The two boards forming the icon panel have come slightly apart, forming a vertical crack,
along which are traces of minor repair work—touches of priming and later painting.
There are small inserts of paint in the lower part of the icon, where, as we know, there
is always more damage than on the rest of the surface. The paint on the icon is rather
thin and transparent in places suggesting that the paint layer may have been slightly
washed off during restoration. However, the upper paint layers—the white strokes and
fine hatching, and the outlines of the folds, are well preserved. Nevertheless, there is
undoubtedly some touching up of the painting in places where it has been lost. These
are clearly visible in the inscriptions: all the original inscriptions are executed in dark
red paint, but the inserts are in bright red. Judging from the character of the restoration,
during which the layers of darkened varnish were probably removed, perhaps later over-
painting as well, and the necessary repairs done, this was the work of restorers who had
been trained in the old Russian tradition going back to Russian Old Believer icon painters
of the early 20 th century. As we know, masters of this type held leading positions in the
restoration workshops of the Soviet Union in the 1920s, which is when our icon was
most probably cleaned.
In the raised borders, on Nicholas’ halo and above his shoulders there are small holes
from the nails which fastened the precious metal ornaments—the cover on the raised
borders, the halo and the tsata, a semi-circular collar in the shape of a crescent moon
on the chest, under the saint’s face. These ornaments show that the icon was specially
venerated in the church where it was kept.
4
Journal of Icon Studies