Beschreibung:

AN IMPORTANT CRETAN ICON OF THE ENTRY OF CHRIST INTO JERUSALEM Second half of the 15th Century 40.4x27.8cm. The Saviour, seated upon an ass, passes in front of a mountain as He rides towards Jerusalem on the left of the panel, twelve apostles walk behind Him; from the elaborate walls and towers of the city a group in festive apparel come through a gateway to meet Him, the men with their heads covered with prayer shawls the leader extending a palm branch; the composition considerably enlivened by the naturalistic painting of a number of small children in various active pursuits: laying garments on the ground beneath the feet of the ass, climbing into a treH to cut branches, one child hangs precariously from a limb above the head of Christ; on the slopes of the moun tain behind, two boys are seen fighting, whilst in the left foreground is a figure of Il Spinario , a small boy removing a thorn from his foot. The borders of the panel trimmed and the thickness reduced, the reverse strengthened with wooden struts. This icon should be included in a small group of panels of the 15th Century which exhibits this unusual iconography, where the Saviour is shown entering from the right of the composition rather than the normal iconography where he enters from the left. Compare with a panel of the Entry into Jerusalem from the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin, Lefkada, Greece, and now in the collection of the Lefkada public library. See Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art , Exhibition Catalogue, Athens Old University, July 26th 1985 - January 6th 1986, Athens, 1986, No. 125, pp. 124-5. Compare with an icon in the Museum of the CIty of Athens. See Nano Chatzidakis, L'Art des Icones en Crete et Dans les iles apres Byzance , Exhibition Catalogue, Palais Des Beaux Arts, Charleroi, 3rd October - 21st November 1982; and also Icons of the Cretan School (15th-16th Century) , Exhibition Catalogue, Benaki Museum, Athens, 1983 No. 28, p.37. Comparision should also be made with an icon in the P. Kannellopoulos Collection, Athens. See From Byzantium to El Greco Greek Frescoes and Icons , Royal Academy of Arts, London 27th March - 21st June 1987, Athens 1987, No. 50, Il.p.119, p.181. The offered example appears to the slightly more elaborate and sophisticated then both the Lefkada and Athens panels with marginal diferences in the Iconography. The composition in more longitudinal, the mountains extending to the top of the panel and the tree with greater height. It also includes a number of additional elements such as a number children (the fighting figures and the boy hanging from the tree). The prayer-shawl of the dominant figure of the group is embellished with banded decoration and there is also a small domed building in the foreground which is absent in both the Lefkada and Athens examples. The offered example would also appear to be in better condition than either of these. This unusual iconography is known on only two wall paintings, the Myrtia Monastery (1491), and the Church of the Panagia in Kato Meropi at Pogoni, both painted in the second half of the 15th Century by Xenos Digenis. . See Front Cover Illustration