Description in Icons, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2004, cat. no. 46:
Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple
Early 16th century, Novgorod
NMI 282

Wood: Linden (Tilia sp.), egg tempera
on canvas. Panel made of two boards
with two splines inlaid across the panel
(both replaced); back planed and varnished.

PROVENANCE: Vilhelm Assarsson
(”Novgorod, beginning of 16th century”);
Åke Wiberg; Gift of Å. Wiberg 1960
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Assarssons samling (25:1);
NM annual report 1960, p 18
CONSERVATION: Restored prior to entering
NM: cleaned; retouches; insertions of
ground and retouches on background and
borders; partly repainted with artificial craquelure;
gold on halos, background and
borders mostly removed; nail holes from
metal cover on halos and background filled
in; side borders cropped; NM 1961: blisters
and flaked paint consolidated, splines re -
moved, panel glued and planed (B.Titov);
1963: heavy blistering remedied; 1978: blisters
in paint layers and longitudinal cracking
mended with wax. Transverse crack on
left side of panel; surface abraded, with
paint layer losses.

A related icon from the Novgorod
region depicting the same motif, and
dated to the late 15th or early 16th century,
is in the Russian Museum,
St Petersburg (inv. no 3034)1. Two typical
Novgorod features are the clearly vertivertical
form of the icon (although this has
been accentuated by subsequent cropping
of the side edges) and the minis -
tering virgins. The top inscription is
original, with a few minor modern ad -
ditions. That of Zacharias – repainted
on top of an old paint layer – is un -
usual for being executed on the actual
halo. This icon probably had its place
in a larger iconostasis, many of which
in the 16th century, included more
than the twelve main festival icons.

1 Leningrad 1974, no 86, fig. 44.