650 - Two icons with Pantocrator and Kazan Mother of God (Kazanskaya), oklad, Russia, probably 19th c.

Two icons with Pantocrator and Kazan Mother of God (Kazanskaya), oklad, Russia, probably 19th c. Wooden panels, the Christ panel with a shponka (slat) on the reverse, tempera, oklads of brass, chased and punched. Two icons of the same format, probably made as a pair: 1) Christ Pantocrator (Ruler of All) in half-length, the right hand raised in blessing, the left on the Holy Scripture, which is represented in the oklad as a closed Gospel book with a cross on the cover and is covered by it; the Christogram on either side of the head, an inscription in Cyrillic letters in the lower border. 2) The Kazan Mother of God (Kazanskaya), a variant of the Hodegetria, as a bust with slightly inclined head, the Christ Child upright at her side, frontal and with the right hand raised in blessing; the maphorion of the Mother of God with chased drapery folds. Both oklads cover the painted surface except for faces and hands; the ground punched, the oval image opening framed by beading, the corners with floral scrolls. The applied haloes (venets) are missing on both panels, the slots for their attachment are visible. Condition commensurate with age, oklads rubbed and dented, craquelure. Each 22.5x17.5 cm (HxW) Icons are cult images of the Orthodox Church; their depiction follows a binding canon that prescribes posture, gesture and colouring. The Pantocrator, Greek for Ruler of All, has shown Christ since the 4th century as a blessing half-figure with the Gospel book in his left hand; the Christogram on either side of the nimbus abbreviates the name Jesus Christ. The Kazan Mother of God goes back to a miraculous image found in Kazan in 1579 after a town fire, which became the protective image of the Romanov dynasty in 1613 and is among the most venerated icons of the Mother of God in Russia; as a variant of the Hodegetria, She Who Shows the Way, it always shows the Child frontal and blessing at the side of the mother. The oklad, in Russian also called riza, is a chased metal cover that protected the tempera layer from candle soot and touch and was at the same time an expression of veneration; covers that conceal everything except face and hands have been widespread in Russia since the 17th century and reached their peak in the 19th century. The venets is the separately applied nimbus of the oklad; the shponki are the crosspieces slotted into grooves on the reverse, intended to prevent the wooden panel from warping.