Description in Icons, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2004, cat. no. 11:
The Nativity of Christ
Part of Festival tier of an iconostasis, cat. nos 11-12
Ca 1700, The Ionian Islands, Greece
NMI 84

Wood: Spruce (Picea sp.), egg tempera.
Panel made of two boards with three
superimposed splines (middle one
lost).

PROVENANCE: Olof Aschberg;
Gift of O.Aschberg 1933
EXHIBITIONS: Stockholm 1974, no 12
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kjellin 1933, nos 84–85
CONSERVATION: Restored in NM 1970:
crack at top of panel and damage to borders
rectified in the paint; 1976: cracks in
panel mended with new wood, splines
repaired with screws and mountings, paint
layer consolidated. Scattered retouches on
borders

The icon cat. no 11 is painted in a style
typical of the Ionian Islands after 1669,
i.e. the time of the Turkish conquest
of Crete, when many icon painters left
for the Ionian Islands.1 Cat.no 12 is
painted by an oth er hand and possibly
somewhat later, following the model
of cat. no 11, and is more provincial
in style.
1 Cf. EIKONES 1980, no 184.
[slut]