DESCENT INTO LIMBO

Creator(s): Unknown

Currently in storage

About this object

Christ stands in a mandorla of horizontal gold rays, trampling the broken Gates of Hell and crushing Satan beneath them. He is dressed in radiant golden robes and holds a furled scroll in his raised left hand. With his right hand he grasps the wrist of the white-haired Adam kneeling at his feet to pull him from the tomb. Opposite him Eve, wrapped in a red maphorion, kneels on her tomb and gazes up at Christ expectantly. Behind Adam stand David and Solomon in crowns and royal robes, with two prophets and St John the Forerunner behind them. Behind Eve are Moses carrying the tablets of the law, St. John in his camel hair shirt and those prophets who have announced the coming of the Savior. The background is filled with a landscape of craggy peach-colored mountains with white highlights and a golden sky. The board has a very shallow carved luzga and a broad white polia (originally gold) with red filenka.

Object name:

DESCENT INTO LIMBO

Made from:

Tempera on wood

Made in:

Palekh, Russia

Date made:

19th c.

Size:

31.8 × 27 cm (12 1/2 × 10 5/8 in.)

Detailed information for this item

Catalog number:

54.62

Class:

ICON

Signature marks:

INSCRIPTION; LABEL on recto: STTSII [saints]; PRORTSY [prophets]; O O N on verso: 66.431 Russia (in pen?); Loan 41.1862 (on label); Rosso (on label); IVANU KARMA ["to Ivan Karma"] (in cyrillic script in pencil)

Credit line:

Gift of Madame Augusto Rosso, 1965