Icon. "Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker"
- Inv. #
- М-119 ЛБС-160
- Century
- 18th century
- Category
- Icons
- Tags
- Dimensions
- 29 × 23 cm
Description
The icon is made entirely of silver. It derives from ancient solid-metal carved icons and is a variant of a repoussé icon-plaque, with a convex field joined to a lavish, shaped frame. In the foreground, against a landscape backdrop covered with low vegetation, is a frontal, full-length image of Nicholas the Wonderworker in episcopal vestments (mitre, sakkos with floral ornament, omophorion with crosses, epigonation); with his left hand he supports his staff, his right raised in blessing. Around the bishop's head is a round, radiant halo with the circular text: "Nicholas the Wonderworker of Christ." On either side of the bishop's head, amid clouds within rays of radiance, are shown the Mother of God (left), holding an omophorion, with the inscription "MR ΘU" on her round halo; and Christ (right), blessing and offering a book, with the inscription "IC XC" on his halo.
The Mother of God, Jesus Christ, and Nicholas the Wonderworker are illumined by rays emanating from a hemisphere bearing the image of a dove (representing the Holy Spirit).
The frame is decorated in the Ukrainian Baroque style with flowers, shells, fruit, leaves, and so on. At the top, the frame forms a cartouche with an inset medallion, at the center of which, amid lavish heavenly spheres, God the Father is depicted within a triangular, shining halo, with a cherub's head below. In the lower border is an engraved donor's inscription in Old Church Slavonic, in several lines, corresponding in modern rendering to: "This metal icon was paid for by Mykola Tymofeiev, judge of the Zaporozhian Sich Army from the Derevianka kurin, for the Church of the Mother of God in Novokodatsk, on May 15, 1772."
On the reverse are attachment pins with loops for hanging.