Description in Icons, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2004, cat. no. 321 a-d:
Panels showing
different phases
of icon painting;
The Mother of God
of Tenderness
a. study of drawing preparation
b. study of painting, earlier phase
c. study of painting, later phase
d. study of last phase of painting,
carnation, highlights e.a.
1929, Pimen Sofronov, Russia / Estonia
NMI 308A-D

Wood: Spruce (Picea sp.), egg tempera
on canvas. Each icon made of three
boards with two splines inlaid across
the panel; back grounded.

Inscriptions a t.: 308 a A) Written in
pencil: V.M. 7511 a; B) Written in pencil
on the upper spline in Cyrillic letters:
IKONOPIS’ PIMEN SOFRONOV
(The icon painter Pimen Sofronov);
C) Written in pencil on the
upper spline in Swedish Ikonmålaren /
Pimen Sofronov, Riga / 1929 / har utfört
dessa 4 ikonmålnings / prov (The icon
painter Pimen Sofronov, Riga, 1929
has made these 4 specimen icon paintings);
308 b: Written in pencil V.M.
7511 b; 308 c: Written in pencil V.M.
7511c; 308 d: Written in pencil V. M.
7511 d

PROVENANCE: Helge Kjellin; Gift of
H.Kjellin 1950
EXHIBITIONS: Stockholm 1988, nos 66– 69
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kjellin 1956, p 33; Kotkavaara
1991, p 78, figs 52–55; Kotkavaara
1995, pp 124–126; Kotkavaara 1999, pp 293,
298, figs 88–91
CONSERVATION: Not restored; 308 a: cracks
through the panel to the right of centre,
damage to the lower edge; 308 b-c: vertical
losses of paint layers; 308 d: minor paint
losses along the inner edges; panels warped.

Helge Kjellin, who held a professorial
chair at Tartu University between 1921
and 1924 and at Riga University from
1929 to 1931, writes as follows concern -
ing these icons: “In 1927 the author
had the opportunity of studying...
collections of old Russian goldsmith’s
art... A couple of years later the author
was able to purchase, from the icon
painter Pimen Sofronov in Riga, four
icon panels prepared and painted by
this Old Believer and showing differ -
ent stages in the creation of a Mother
of God picture.”1 The note, on the
reverse of cat. no 321 a, was no doubt
written by Kjellin himself.
The icon painter and teacher Pimen
Sofronov was born in 1898 in an Eston -
ian Old Believer village and worked in
Prague, Paris, Rome and elsewhere
before settling in the USA in 1947.
He died in 1973.2His pupils in Rome
included Robert de Caluwé.3
K.Kotkavaara writes about these
icons: “In pre-Revolutionary times
models displaying an image in various
stages of accomplishment had been
used by masters who trained appren -
tices. It is reasonable to assume that...
Sofronov’s ‘educational icons’ were
designed for internal use and it is there -
fore all the more interesting that
Pimen Maksimovich (Sofronov) sold
his panels to a non-Orthodox Swede”.4
The icons, which apparently were
used for teaching purposes as objects of
demonstration, were inventoried in
1988.

1 Kjellin 1956, p 33.
2 Kotkavaara 1999, p 4 ff.
3 Cf. cat. no 323.
4 Kotkavaara 1999, p 293.
[slut]