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The Icon of the Holy Unmercenaries (Greek: Άγιοι Ανάργυροι) Cosmas and Damian, as Bequeathed by Zofia Ruebenbauer, in the Collection of the National Museum in Cracow

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Kruk M. P.

Ikonotheka

2017

vol. 27

27-54

In 2011 the National Museum in Cracow received a bequest that had been specified in the last will and testament of Zofia Ruebenbauer from Ottawa. The gift was described as a 19th century Russian icon. Comparative stylistic analysis complemented by restoration work and a material study revealed an exquisite paint layer, for which analogies may be found in the mid-14th-century Greek art of the Paleologian period. The icon was probably painted in the third quarter of the 14th century in one of the centres in northern Greece including Kastoria, Veria, Mt. Athos, Thessalonike and Constantinople itself. The collection of the Byzantine Museum in Kastoria includes many icons of the holy physicians depicted in a similar pose. Iconographical details such as the surgical knives in the hands of the physicians and in the open tool case find close analogies in the 14th-century wall paintings in Peloponnese, e.g. in the Church of Saint Paraskevi (Αγία Παρασκευή, Agia Paraskevi) and Saint John Chrysostom (Άγιος Ιωάννης Χρυσόστομος, Agios Ioannes Chrisostomos) in Geraki, as well as in the Orthodox Church of the Holy Unmercenaries (Άγιοι Ανάργυροι, Agioi Anargyroi) in Nomitsi. The conclusions of the analysis regarding the icon’s provenance find indirect corroboration in the recently discovered fact that in the first half of the 19th century the work of art was owned by Haryklia Mavrocordatos-Serini, Sas-Hoszowska (1836–1906), a member of the Lvov line of the Greek princely family of Mavrocordatos. The names of her children with the exact dates of their birth appear on the reverse side of the icon. The work of art was passed down to Jerzy Ruebenbauer, who carried it away from Lvov during the Second World War, taking it first to Warsaw, where he met his future wife Zofia, and after the war to Canada via Belgium.

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1 Ikonotheka

1 Kruk M. P.

1 2018

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The Icon of the Holy Unmercenaries (Greek: Άγιοι Ανάργυροι) Cosmas and Damian, as Bequeathed by Zofia Ruebenbauer, in the Collection of the National Museum in Cracow