TIRANA, April 11 /ATA/ – The Medieval Art Museum in Korça said Thursday it had complete restoration of the Descent into Hell icon by icon painter Kostandin.
The icon, painted on a monolithic walnut panel, once decorated the iconostasis of the church “The Virgin Life-Giving Source” and is part of the from the Dodekaorton cycle. Most of the surface is worked on gold and therefore significant part of its pictorial layer had been damaged and lost.
The icon, preserved in the collection of the Medieval Art Museum in Korça, depicts Christ’s triumphal descent into hell. Christ, the central figure in the composition, is depicted in pronounced movement, his red cloak billowing behind.
The Saviour raises Adam and Eve simultaneously, pulling them from their ancient sarcophagi. He holds a sceptre in his left hand. From the cross of victory at its top billows a red banner. Behind Christ’s glory, four angels wearing white chitons and gold-red cloaks hold torches and spears.
The upper part of the icon features rocks in a very rugged relief that constitutes the environment where the scene takes place. In this icon the painter Konstandin from Korça writes only the year in which he painted the icon 1770.
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