Inscription: John 10:9 ‘I am the door: by me if anyone enters in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture’

Feast Day: 19th December

St Nicholas is shown as a bishop wearing the traditional stole with crosses. He is seated on a magnificent high-backed throne, blessing the onlooker with his right hand and holding the gospels in his left which has a passage from John 10:9. He is among the most widely revered saints in Orthodoxy and legend attributes many miracles to him. According to one tradition he was present at the Council of Nicaea (325) where he attacked the heretic Arius. In the West he is Father Christmas.

The panel gives Nicholas the same presence and dignity as in a monumental icon, an effect achieved by the proportions of figure in relation to the sense of infinite space created by the gold background. The fine linearity of the brushwork is typical of how the later Palaiologan style was developed by Cretan painters. We note the face delicately modelled with olive green shadows and warm ochre for the skin and parallel white strokes on the hair and beard.