Panel, carved double sided ivory panel, the Twelve feasts and Christ in Majesty with saints, Moscow or Novgorod, 16th century

Carved ivory devotional tablet with a rounded top depicting on one side the twelve feasts and on the other Christ in Majesty with saints. The front is divided into three registers. At the top is the cross, flanked by the Emperor Constantine and his Empress Helena, with two scroll-holding prophets. In the middle, Christ in Majesty is flanked by the Virgin and St John the Baptist (the Deesis), the archangels Michael and Gabriel and four bishop saints. At the bottom are six bearded saints with scrolls or books, a crowned (female?) saint with cross, and two further saints with crosses, all standing. On the back are the Twelve Feasts of the Eastern Church (the Dodekaorton), arranged in three registers of four scenes: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, the Baptism of Christ, the Raising of Lazarus, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Transfiguration, the Crucifixion, the Harrowing of Hell, the Ascension, the Pentecost and the Dormition of the Virgin. Above the scenes on both sides are identifying Slavonic inscriptions.

Purchased from Ernest De Maria, London, in 1884 for £25; previous history not known.

Historical significance: the composition of the scenes with closely packed minute figures is characteristic of the work produced on Mount Athos.

This double-sided ivory Enkolpion is made in Russia (Moscow or Novgorod) in the sixteenth century. It belongs to a group of ivory reliefs of similar form and size, with the Dodekaorton arranged in three registers. These microscopically-carved reliefs were clearly made in large numbers over a long period in the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth. There is a close connection between the carvers of the Russian reliefs and those of the Greek crosses of Athos, and this suggests not only that the work of the Russian craftsmen was sent to the Holy Mountain but that some of the carvers were actually employed there.

20-1884