144 - Four-panel travel icon (skladon) - 19th century

Four-panel travel icon (skladon) - 19th century Champlevé Height x width: 17.5 x 40 cm Closely associated with the Old Believer communities (Staroobrjadcy), this piece is cast in bronze using the lost-wax technique, finely chased, fire-gilded, and embellished with polychrome champlevé enamels in the characteristic white and blue tones. From a historical and cultural perspective, this specific type of artifact met the precise practical and spiritual needs of the Old Believers, who, following the 17th-century schism (Raskol) caused by Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reforms, chose bronze and brass for their icons. The metal ensured the physical preservation of the sacred images, allowing them to withstand frequent relocations during forced exiles and pilgrimages. The exquisite craftsmanship of these micro-castings, capable of concentrating an extraordinary theological depth within a few square centimeters, attests to the exceptionally high technical skill achieved by the clandestine foundries active in the northern Pomor’ye regions or in the specialized workshops of Guslitsy and Vetka. The structure of the polyptych unfolds across four panels, each surmounted by a shaped ogival cusp. Within each panel, the scenes are arranged sequentially from left to right and from top to bottom. The first cusp features the solemn scene of the Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary, while the second depicts the Holy Trinity. The cusp of the third panel depicts the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, where the Patriarch of Jerusalem raises the relic with the three onion domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher behind him, surrounded by two symmetrical wings of praying figures, among whom Constantine and his mother Helena are distinguished in imperial robes. The fourth and final cusp visually depicts the liturgical hymn of the Akathistos, in which all of creation and the assembly of the righteous glorify Mary; at the center, the Virgin sits upon a high throne surrounded by a flowering vine reminiscent of the Tree of Jesse, flanked by Old Testament prophets holding their respective prophetic attributes, such as the nest, the ladder, the candlestick, and the mountain. The cycle of the main panels begins with the first leaf, entirely dedicated to the mystery of the Incarnation. In the upper register, the narrative begins on the left with the Annunciation to the Mother of God, flanked on the right by the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ—a densely composed and articulated scene depicting the Virgin reclining in the cave, the Child in the manger watched over by the ox and the donkey, Saint Joseph tormented by doubts in the lower left, and the scene of the newborn’s first bath in the opposite corner. In the lower register, the narrative continues on the left with the Nativity of the Mother of God, depicting Saint Anne lying on the birthing bed and handmaidens tending to the infant Mary in the presence of Saint Joachim, and concludes on the right with the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, in which the child Virgin walks toward High Priest Zechariah. The second panel illustrates Christ’s public manifestation and the revelation of His divine nature. The upper register opens on the left with the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, where the elderly Simeon the God-Receiver welcomes the Child into his arms, followed on the right by the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan River. In the lower register, on the left, is the Transfiguration of the Lord, with Christ radiant on Mount Tabor between the prophets Moses and Elijah while the three apostles are blinded by the divine light, and on the right, Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, welcomed by the crowd. The third panel focuses on the birth of the Church and the triumph over death. The upper register opens on the left with the Anastasis, the Descent into Hell, which, in Orthodox theology, represents the Resurrection itself; here, Christ, enclosed in a radiant mandorla, tramples the broken gates of Hades and seizes Adam and Eve by the wrists to draw them out of their tombs. On the right follows the Ascension of the Lord, with Jesus ascending to heaven in a glory of light, supported by angels. In the lower register of the same panel, on the left, is Pentecost, with the Apostles arranged in a semicircle around the central figure of the Virgin Mary, and on the right, the Dormition of the Mother of God, which depicts Mary’s lifeless body on the funeral bier surrounded by weeping apostles, while behind her stands Christ, receiving her soul in the form of an infant in swaddling clothes. The fourth panel departs from the traditional cycle of liturgical feasts to devote itself entirely to the veneration of four celebrated Miraculous Icons of the Mother of God, serving as a profound tribute to Russian Marian devotion. In the upper left is depicted the Icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin; in the scene below, before an altar, two groups of Holy Fathers, monks, and Church hierarchs