77-88

An Unknown Italo-cretan Icon of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa in the Zoodochos Pigi Monastery in Patmos

Articles

• Κεφαλά,  Κωνσταντία
• ΚΕΦΑΛΑ, Κωνσταντία

The convent of Zoodochos Pigi in Chora, Patmos, houses a hitherto unknown icon of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa (40x30 cm.) (Fig. 1). The Theotokos is depicted in bust, turned to the right, holding Christ with her left arm and offering her left breast with her right hand. She wears a greygreen dress with simple gold embroidery and a russet westernstyle maphorion; instead of the conventional headdress she has a white, semi-diaphanous western-style veil which wholly covers her hair and forms a delicate curve at her neck (Fig. 2). The baby sits relaxed in his mother's arms, with his legs crossed and the bare right sole exposed to view. He holds the Virgin's breast in both hands, and brings it close to his mouth to suck. He wears a deep blue sleeved chiton and a light pomegranate-coloured himation decorated with concentric circles embroidered in gold, with jagged rays at the extremities and a few interspersed stars (Fig. 3). Christ's hair is stylised, with parallel, horizontal rows of curls at the side. The subject of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa, well known in wall-painting from the earliest Christian era, has been the subject of extensive study. In portable icon painting it appears in its final form in a detail of the centre leaf of a triptych at Mt Sinai depicting the Nativity and scenes from the infancy of Christ, a work which is dated to the first half of the twelfth century and is associated with the artistic output of Constantinople. Mt Sinai also houses two portable icons of the Virgin Galatotrophousa dating from the thirteenth century with a common iconographie feature in Christ's τις δεήσεις της οικογένειας ενός ανθρώπου, ο οποίος, εκτός από τη θρησκευτική του ευλάβεια, χαρακτηριζόταν και από εξαιρετικά εκλεπτυσμένο γούστο. diaphanous chiton, which is also found in a group of portable thirteenth-century icons in southern Italy and Calabria. Notable among the icons with the same theme are the Galaktotrophousas in the church of S. Cosma e Damiano in Pisa (1260-1280), the Byzantine Museum in Athens, which is attributed to a thirteenth century western workshop, and the Palace of the Grand Master in Rhodes (fourteenth century). The iconographie type had travelled a long journey of crystallisation before returning to the thematic repertoire of fifteenth-century Cretan painting enriched by features taken from the western tradition. The beautiful icon examined here belongs to this artistic climate, and represents the simplest variant of the theme, with the Virgin unaccompanied by other figures, saints or angels. It displays similarities with the icon of the Galaktotrophousa flanked by angels in the Benaki Museum (second half of the fifteenth century), and with two right-handed Galaktotrophousas, one in the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia and the other in the Byzantine Museum, Athens, which is dated to the second half of the fifteenth century and can be associated with the artistic circle of Andrea Pavia. The Patmos icon also has iconographie links with a late fifteenth-century icon in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and another dating from the same period in the Malcove Collection. If the iconography of this icon faithfully follows Byzantine models, stylistically it can be ranked among the finest ItaloCretan works. The translucent modelling of the faces with dense parallel lines spread like a mesh over the brown underpaint, the associated use of colour and line, and the naturalistic arrangement of the drapery recall the products of mature late fifteenth-century Cretan painting. The relatively small dimensions of the icon would support the theory that it was intended for an icon-stand in a Patmian church, or, more likely, for private devotion. This last possibility is strengthened by the choice of an unusual iconographie type, which probably indicates the individual preference of the person who commissioned it.

• History and Archaeology
• Arts

• Arts and religion
• Αρχαιολογία

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/4137
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.410