Santa Caterina d'Alessandria
Private collection
Igorski paints icons following the oldest models and techniques: the face is not the artist's invention but the transmission of a thousand-year-old canon. This icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was made as a gift for a friend.
Catherine of Alexandria, who lived between the 3rd and 4th centuries, is venerated as a martyr and patron of philosophers and scholars: according to tradition she publicly refuted the pagan scholars summoned to make her renounce her faith, before being condemned to the wheel that bears her name.
Her face was chosen and inspired by Fayum portraits, the funerary paintings of Roman Egypt contemporary with the saint: a way of giving Catherine the features of those who might really have known her. The technique is classical egg tempera, following the oldest approach to iconography.
The halo is covered in natural gold burnished over Armenian bole: the traditional leaf gilding technique that, once polished, gives the gold the shine of a mirror.
A commissioned icon: from € 100
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