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THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN IN THE TEMPLE

24.4 x 18.4 x 2 cm

Nikolaos Kallergis (?) (1699-1747)

The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple is depicted in a type that combines elements of Byzantine iconography with Western stylistic traits. On the left is the Virgin as a girl, accompanied by her parents Anne and Joachim making animated gestures. The three are flanked by young girls holding lighted candles and dressed in colourful Western garments. At the entrance to the temple, Symeon stands erect in pontifical vestments, with tiara and crosier. A maiden from the retinue approaches left, her sophisticated attitude somewhat ineptly conveyed. The scene takes place before the temple, which is shown as an arcade in front of a high wall. At the top of a staircase to the left, between two columns and below a red curtain drawn aside, is the little Virgin, turned towards the angel descending from heaven in a cloud and offering her the bread. The seven-wick lamp and a small censer can be discerned within this space. On the gold ground of the icon traces of a now erased inscription in capital letters are discerned: EICOΔΟC. The incised preliminary design and an incised wavy line on the borders are also visible. The icon is notable for the precise drawing and the harmonious combination of light colours. The youthful faces with roseate cheeks have fine neat features, while the countenances of Joachim and Symeon have a livelier, troubled expression and wrinkled brow. There is a restrained gentleness in the poses and gestures. The garments are painted in alternating hues of rose, blue, pale green and yellow. The deep blue arcade and the paler blue-grey part of the temple with the staircases are projected against the backdrop of the pale rose wall, while the floor is painted a deeper shade of this colour.
All the above elements of the icon are reminiscent of works by Nikolaos Kallergis,¹ particularly the small biographical scenes surrounding the icon of Saint Spyridon (Cat. no. 46, Figs 207-214) and of Saint Charalambos, dated 1728, in the Zakynthos Museum.² On these is encountered a corresponding miniature rendering of the scenes as well as a corresponding polychromy in similar tones. Kallergis’s art is recognizable particularly in the painting of Joachim’s anxious visage, in the group of girls accompanying the Virgin (Figs 215-217) and in the ‘miniature scene of the young Virgin with the angel inside the sanctuary, which recall similar figures from the border scenes on the icon of Saint Spyridon. The mingling of traditional and Western elements, the naivety and immediacy of the drawing, as well as the quality of the coloration are common to both works. Further similarities are apparent in the rendering of the chief priest (Fig. 218) and Saint Spyridon (Fig. 219), as well as of the female figures (Figs 217, 221), with the Virgin (Fig. 223) in the icon of the Annunciation Cat. no. 48 (Fig. 220), which I attribute to the same painter. Nikolaos Kallergis is distinguished for the variety of styles he adopts in his painting, depending on the size of the icon. For despotic icons and bema doors of the iconostasis³ he prefers a pronounced linear style, imitative of Byzantine, while in small works⁴ he comes closer to Western models, with smooth modelling of flesh, soft drapery and a wider range of colours. These remarks suggest that our icon of the Presentation of the Virgin should be attributed to the hand of this painter and included in his group of works of miniature character, such as the icon of Saint Spyridon (Cat. no. 46). The theme of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple is encountered in a different composition, which nevertheless follows an analogous Western model, in another icon by Nikolaos Kallergis, dated 1738, in Zakynthos;⁵ the girls in the Virgin’s retinue wear similar Western costumes and Symeon appears in pontifical tiara, while the Western-type buildings are different in form. Comparable compositions in the Western idiom also occur in later icons by other eighteenth-century painters, at Vanato on Zakynthos⁶ and in Cephalonia,⁷ where the same Western model is set inside a traditional-type temple.

CONDITION Very good. The incised preliminary design is visible.

PROVENANCE Zakynthos (?).

Bibliography Unpublished.

NOTES
1. For the painter see Cat. no. 46, nn. 16, 17, and Cat. no. 48, 363-365.
2. See Cat. no. 45, n. 18.
3. Konomos 1988, figs 62, 63. Rigopoulos 1994, figs 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
4. Rigopoulos 1994, figs 2,5, 11. See also an icon of similar art, possibly by the same painter in Cephalonia, Cephalonia II 1994, 44-45, figs 36-39.
5. Chatzidakis 1967, 27. Rigopoulos 1994, no. 9, 37, fig. 5. Rigopoulos 1994a, 286, pls XXI-XXIIL.
6. Charalambidis 1978, fig. 6.
7. Cephalonia I 1989, fig. 262.