See the Book

THE VIRGIN THE ‘UNWITHERING ROSE’ AND SAINTS

Drawing. Charcoal
60 x 41 cm.
First half of 19th century
Handmade paper with watermark

The unfinished drawing on a single sheet of handmade paper with watermark has at a later stage been glued to card and is in mediocre condition.

The central subject of the Virgin and Child is framed by ten saints, an unfinished representation of the Holy Trinity and the Three Hierarchs. The symmetrical composition and the manner of the work refer to prints that circulated widely during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.¹

The depiction of the Virgin and Child recalls the type of the ‘Unwithering Rose’,² which appeared in the later years of the Post-Byzantine period and is a visual rendering of the canon of the hymnographer Joseph, which is chanted at the service of the Akathistos Hymn. On either side of the Virgin’s head are miniature angels in clouds, holding on high her crown and blank cartouches for the ligatures MP ΘY (Mother of God), as in analogous engraving.³ However, the representation seems to be unfinished, since the roses and the Virgin’s flower-bearing staff are missing. On the contrary, the crown, the characteristic kind of maphorion fastened elegantly on the chest, as in Italo-Cretan icons of the Madre della Consolazione,⁴ and the imperial raiment of Christ coexist, being customary iconographical elements of the Virgin and Child in the type of the ‘Unwithering Rose’.⁵ The seated Christ-Child is rendered in a variation that is not common in nineteenth-century icons and engravings,⁶ the closest parallel for which is the icon of the Virgin the ‘Unwithering Rose’ in the church of the Akathistos Hymn at Xanthi (1867).⁷

The representation of the Holy Trinity also seems to be unfinished, since the globe of the universe and the Holy Spirit between God the Father and the Son are missing, unless the subject is combined with the Coronation of the Virgin, as in nineteenth-century Athonite prints.⁸ Interesting is the depiction together of the Serb saints Sayvas and Symeon, founders of the Chilandari monastery,⁹ and that of St John of Rila (Bulgaria)¹⁰ and Paisios, most probably the Chilandarian (1722-1798),¹¹ prior of the Chilandari monastery and author of the famous ‘Slav-Bulgarian History’, a book considered holy in the consciousness of the Bulgarian nation and which had a decisive impact on its rebirth.

The depiction together of four saints associated in diverse ways with the Chilandari monastery, and especially of Paisios, which is extremely rare if not unique, link the anthivolon in the Makris- Margaritis Collection with Mount Athos and most probably with the Slav-Bulgarian milieu of certain monasteries, very possibly the Chilandari monastery during the eighteenth-nineteenth century. In its stylistic manner too the drawing refers to a North Greek workshop, possibly on Mount Athos, dependent on the painting in north- western Greece and in the southern Balkans, and could be dated to the first half of the nineteenth century.

M. Nanou

1 Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos {10-112, 116-121, 377.
2 Πάλλας 1971, 222. Καλοκύρης 1972, 205-206.
3 Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos 84-94, 100, 109-115, 117-121, 123-125, 170- 174, 182-185, vol. IΙ, nos 453-457.
4 Μπαλτογιάννη 1994, 273-280, nos 68-84. N. Χατζηδάκη 1983, nos 43, 44. N. Χατζηδάκη 1993, nos 24, 25.
5 For collected examples, see Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos 122-133. Cf. N. Chatzidakis 1998, no. 60. Acheimastou-Potamianou 1998b, no. 97. Δρανδάκη 2002, no. 71.
6 Μπαλτογιάννη 1985, no. 222. Μητσάνη 1996, no. 33. Yilmaz 2002, no. 82. Εικόνες Αλβανίας 2006, no. 52 (E. Drakopoulou). Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos 122, 126, 127, 129.
7 Τσιγάρας 2004, 195, fig. 171, 214-215, fig. 190.
8 Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos 134-137.
9 For related late representations of the two saints, see Papastratos 1990, vol. I, nos 361-363, vol. IT, nos 437, 460-461, 464-465, 467. Davidov 2004, 134-135. 154. Θησαυροί του Αγίου Όρους 1997, no.2.131. Τσιγάρας‚ 2003, 198.
10 The saint is frequently depicted during the eighteenth-nineteenth century in murals, icons and engravings, see Χpистов–Стоиков–Миятєв 1957, 271, fig. 35. Icônes bulgares 1976, no. 113. Papastratos 1990, vol. I, no. 111, vol. II, nos 555, 556. La parole et l’image 2004, nos II.14, II.35, IIΙ.41-42, IIΙ.43-44, IIΙ.45-46.
11 Χανή-Μωϋσίδου 2003, 15-18, 21-23. Μαραγκός 2005, 47-48, 56-57. Μακαρίου Σιμωνοπετρίτου 2008, 238-239. Μωϋσέως Αγιορείτου 2008. 511.