Beschreibung:

AN IMPORTANT RUSSIAN ICON OF THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 16th century The oval bowed panel probably cut into its present oval shape to be inset into the Festivals Tier of a later Iconastasis, Oval, 70,5 x 64,5 cm. LITERATURE: Ryska Ikoner i svensk och norsk ägo, Helge Kjellin, Stockholm 1956, illustrated page 187. PROVENANCE: Einar Krane This icon forms part of a group of four known panels from an iconastasis, two of which, the Dormition and the Ascension, were in the Tretyakov Gallery, from which they were transferred to the USSR Central Art collection Warehouse in 1936, and then acquired by the American collector George R. Hann. See his catalogue, Christies, New York, 17-18th April 1980, lots 55 and 56. They are now respectively in the collection of the Menil Foundation in Houston Texas, and in the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego. Those two panels were also cut into ovals, but were at some later stage fitted into rectangular panels. The fourth panel, an Entry into Jerusalem, also from the collection of Einar Krane, was sold at Sotheby's in London, 18th November 1999, lot 325. All four panels, with their elongated figures and soft palette are painted in a manner that recalls the work of the great Dionysii (c. 1440-1510). Einar Krane was a Norwegian diplomat who lived in Moscow in the 1920s and 30s, and was known to be one of the Soviet capital's only private homeowners when he managed to buy a large art nouveau villa on Buzheninov Street. He formed a collection of icons while there, six of which were purchased by the National Museum after his death in Oslo in 1959.