New York City, New York Aug 31, 2022 (Issuewire.com) - Russian Icon Collection hosts a diverse collection of antique Russian icons assembled by Oleg Kushnirsky, a founder of the online gallery and a passionate icon expert who has dedicated his life to exploring Russian iconography and collecting museum-quality Eastern Orthodox icons. The private collection features items with auction provenance and expert authentication. One can find pieces created by talented icon painters from renowned icon painting centers, including Palekh, Mstera, Moscow, and many others.
Icons in the collection highlight different figures and subjects in Bible and Christianity. Special attention should be paid to the images devoted to the Resurrection – the Harrowing of Hades, with major Church Feasts. Also known as “polnitsy,” such icons are famous for their complex iconographic scenes encompassing all great events of the Gospel on a single panel. Several icons of this type were influenced by Baroque art, so one can track the influence of Western European art on traditional Eastern iconography. As of today, the Resurrection icons constitute the foundation of the collection.
The yearly Menaion icon series is another highlight of the collection. A complex of 12 antique icons depicts the saints and feasts for each month of the ecclesiastical year, from September to August. All of them were painted in Palekh in the 19th century. Icons of this type are especially valued for their detailed style and a wide number of saints. According to the Russian Icon Collection, the fact that the series contains all 12 icons is a considerable rarity among private collections and art institutions.
Russian Icon Collection places a high value on hagiographical icons that were painted in Vetka, a large center of the Old Believers. Some of the icons include images of St. Catherine, St. Alexius, St. John the Baptist, and St. Charalambos of Magnesia. Guslitsy, another Old Believers center, is represented by well-preserved icons of St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. Cosmas, and the Prophet Elias.
Marian icons deserve a special mention. The series was created in the Vladimir iconographic center in the 19th century. As the name suggests, such icons are devoted to the image of Mary, the Mother of God. Russian Icon Collection holds two particular icons with the image of the Virgin: the Feodorovskaya icon of the Mother of God and the Unexpected Joy icon.
Oleg Kushnirsky’s collection celebrates the stylistic abundance of Russian iconography of the imperial period. A great variety of rare icons of museum quality selected by the dedicated collector makes the Russian Icon Collection’s legacy a valuable gem for the preservation of iconographic culture and history.
Media Contact
Ilya Kushnirskiy info@russianicon.com +19176585075 https://russianicon.com/
