Condition: some blemishes consistent with age. The panel, having lost its original borders, is now framed in antique velvet.

Feast Day: 22nd of December

St Anastasia is dressed in the red cloak of a martyr over a blue robe. In her hands she holds her traditional attributes in Orthodoxy, a cross and a vase.

Saint Anastasia of Sirmium was a martyred in the reign Diocletian in 304. She is traditionally shown displaying the Cross and her phial of healing liquid. The iconography derives from a well-known Byzantine icon the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Icons of Anastasia are sometimes found in the 19th century but rarely found dating from the 16th century. The simplicity of this icon is representative of what Smirnova described when writing about late sixteenth century Russian art, which embodies: ‘the classical virtues of clarity and harmony, the purity of soul of the figures, their goodness and mercy [which] reflect the bedrock of Russian artistic, moral and spiritual ideals,’. (Smirnova, 1998)

Bibliography

Engelina Smirnova, ‘Moscow Icon Painting from the 14th to 16th century’ in The Art of Holy Russia: Icons from Moscow 1400-1660, eds. Robin Cormack & Delia Gaze. Royal Academy of Art: 1998