Russian [ Northern School]
30.5x27x3 cms
17th cent.
Merchants from Novgorod began moving into the noth-eastern lands between the Urals and the Baltic in the 14th cent. As they did so it is not surprising that they took with them images of St Parasceva who although popularly known as "The Friday Saint" was also the patron Saint of merchants and shopkeepers. In the red cloak of a martyr she wears a richly decorated head-dress of veil and crown symbolic of her being a bride of Christ. In her hand is a scroll which would probably have been inscribed with the lines of Isaiah 43: 10 "Be ye my witnesses and I too am a witness", or, the beginning of the Nicene Creed "I believe in One God, the Father Almighty".
In these remote, isolated, conservative , self-supporting communities ideas travelled slowly. These factors had ther influence too on iconography so that icons would often show characteristics more familiar two hundred years before. This is one such example. The structure is simple and uncomplicated and without subtelty; the eyes dark and riveting. There is a "flatnesss" of presentation. The palette is subdued with the colours restricted to those the artist could mix from the range of plants and stones available to him in his immediate environs. There is an earthiness in the icon's presentation notwithstanding the characteristic white highlights of the eyes and cheeks of the Northern School.
In the top left is a small image of the "Image Not Made By Hand".
The image is contained within a double kovcheg. On the reverse one of two original shponki remain.
