Condition: some blemishesconsistent with age. The panel, having lost its original borders, is now framed in antique velvet.
Feast Day: 22nd of December
St
Anastasia is dressed in the red cloak of a martyr over a blue robe. In her
hands she holds her traditional attributes in Orthodoxy, a cross and a vase.
Saint
Anastasia of Sirmium was a martyred in the reign Diocletian in 304. She is traditionally
shown displaying the Cross and her phial of healing liquid. The iconography
derives from a well-known Byzantine icon the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
Icons of
Anastasia are sometimes found in the 19th century but rarely found dating
from the 16th century. The simplicity of this icon is representative
of what Smirnova described when writing about late sixteenth century Russian
art, which embodies: ‘the classical virtues of clarity and harmony, the purity
of soul of the figures, their goodness and mercy [which] reflect the bedrock of
Russian artistic, moral and spiritual ideals,’. (Smirnova, 1998)
Bibliography
Engelina
Smirnova, ‘Moscow Icon Painting from the 14th to 16th
century’ in The Art of Holy Russia: Icons from Moscow 1400-1660, eds.
Robin Cormack & Delia Gaze. Royal Academy of Art: 1998