Original scientific paper
THE MEDIAEVAL ICON OF THE ELEUSE MADONNA IN ZADAR
Mirjana Ćorović-Ljubinković
; Beograd
Abstract
There was a smail silver framed icon of the Eleuse Madonna in the Orthodox Church of St. Elias in Zadar, of which only a few painted parts are still extant.
The silver framing has a unique ornament, produced by pressure, that is always repeated: it is a motif of interlaced concentric circles with a small stylized folower in the middle. The centre part of the framing consists of a plate cut along the outline of the body of the four separate silver bands, one each side. The whole silver framing is too large an ornament for such a small icon. It had, obviously, been prepared for an icon of a larger size. Similar patterns were to be found in the prominent centres of the Balkan Peninsula.
The ornament as such and the skill of working it into the shape: the two-dimensional tretment with the use of a plastically wrought band for the tracing of motifs – a characteristic Byzantine way in the working out of precious metals and even of stone and wood – belongs to the period of about the middle to the end of the 15th century. The small icon in Zadar, judging from the minimum that has remained of its painted part and taking into consideration the silver outline in the first place, has been created somewhere at the beginning of that period, that is before the mid-15th century.
It is not known either when or how this icon reached the St. Elias church in Zadar; by considering its size, however, it originally had probably been made for private use and was later presented to the church.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
160271
URI
Publication date:
23.12.1980.
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