Travel icon - Feast day icon - Bronze, Enamel

Four-panel folding quadruplex icon (skladень / skladén’) in cast brass, composed of four hinged panels, a typical travel icon of 19th-century Russian Orthodoxy.

The four-panel folding quadric panels were among the most popular forms of travel icons and were colloquially called утюг (utiug), i.e., “iron,” because of their shape and weight when closed.

Each of the four panels features an ogive-shaped top in Russo-Byzantine style (kokoshnik), with engraved decorations. The panels are joined by sturdy, functional hinges. The sacred relief scenes are arranged in four panels per screen, for a total of about sixteen narrative scenes, presumably depicting the Twelve Great Feasts (Dodekaorton) of the Orthodox Church, saints, and scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin.

The work is executed in ornamental brass relief with polychrome enamel decorations. There are enamel inserts in blue/turquoise colors, which give vibrancy to the compositions.

The inscriptions in Cyrillic characters, legible in the cartouches between the panels, identify the individual scenes depicted.

The enamels are in excellent condition