Venetian-Cretan icon Adoration of the Magi Crete, end of 17th century Tempera on panel 54.5 x 46.5 cm Typical work of the so-called "Cretan Mannerism", this icon proposes one of the most appreciated and widespread iconographies of the last period of production of the workshops present in Crete. The models developed by the island's masters during the sixteenth century under the direct influence of Venetian painting became, during the seventeenth and the first years of the eighteenth century, veritable topoi of iconographic art, replicated until the subjects were exhausted. The typical characteristics of the Byzantine icon are here almost completely abandoned in favor of a decidedly Venetian style that we find both in the setting (see the column that acts as an architectural backdrop to the scene) and in the rendering of the drapery, in which there is a "certain" search for volumetric construction, and in the positions and gestures of the characters that are very reminiscent of the sacred compositions of the lagoon masters. Veneto-cretan icon Adoration of the Magi Crete, late 17th century Tempera on panel 54,5 x 46,5 cm