Zyuzeva Svetlana

Two decorated Tzar’s icons of St. Nicholas of the 16th century

Abstract

The article studies two Tzar’s revetments on the venerated icons of St. Nicholas. One of them is the lost revetment of the ancient icon “Nikola Velikoretskiy”, brought in 1555 from Vyatka to the Dormition Cathedral of Moscow Kremlin. By the order of Tzar Ivan Vasilyevich, the icon was renewed and decorated with a toreutic riza and a cover with niello plaques. We suppose that the set of the plaques (among which are images of Moscow metropolitans Alexey, Peter, Iona, St. Alexander Svirskiy) is connected with text of the narrative about the icon “Nikola Velikoretskiy” and that the creation of the toreutic decoration could be connected with work of European masters at the Tzar’s court. The article also analyses the programme of the plaques placed on the case of the icon “St. Nicholas”, the prayer icon of Evdokia Bogdanovna Saburova, the fi rst wife of the tzar’s son Ivan Ivanovich, tonsured at Pokrovskiy Monastery of Suzdal after 1572. On the narrow margins of the frame, there are plaques with the image of Deisis, the great teachers of the church and Russian saints, as well as the heavenly patrons of the commissioner and the dynasty of Rurik and Godunov. We suppose that the toreutic icon case was supplemented with plaques with similar-named saints of the two tzars’ dynasties after Boris Godunov’s enthronement in 1598.

Keywords

icons of St, Nicholas, workshops of Kremlin, art of jewellery, culture of tzar’s court, toreutics, European masters

References

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Information about the author

Zyuzeva Svetlana

Place of work: Kremlin Museum; Kremlin, Moscow 103132, Russian Federation;
Post: Research Fellow;
ORCID: 0000-0002-6499-0811;
Email: zuzeva@yandex.ru.