Deux icônes crétoises inédites au musée de l’OEuvre Notre Dame de Strasbourg : Saint Georges à cheval terrassant le dragon et la Déisis.

Abstract

Two unpublished  Cretan icons at the OEuvre Notre Dame Museum, Strasbourg: Saint George the dragon-slayer on a horseback and the Deisis.

Two unpublished icons at the OEuvre Notre Dame Museum, Strasbourg are examined in the present study. Saint George the dragon-slayer on a horseback is painted after the iconographic model of the painter Angelos’ icon at the Benaki Museum. It is attributed to an outstanding Cretan painter of the second half of the 15th century, working close to his workshop. The Deisis, where Christ at the center is represented, standing and frontal and the Virgin and Saint John the Forerunner turned in prayer, holding long unfolded scrolls with the text of the prayer of intercession, in calligraphic lettering, derives from Byzantine iconography and presents an original compilation of two other iconographic types of the Deisis, widely diffused on 15th century Cretan icons. It is a fine work, distinguished for its creative composition and the original rendering of the inscriptions; it can be attributed to a skillful Cretan painter, of the middle of the 16th century, working probably in the context of Cretan painters in Venice.