Online Exhibition:
A rare collection of eighteenth and nineteenth-century
outline drawings and studies for Russian icons
The 32 Russian outline drawings and studies (prorisi) come from a private collection in Paris. In 1998 they were acquired by a private collector in the Netherlands, where they were restored and framed the following year. In 2000 part of the collection was displayed in the Bijbels Museum in Amsterdam, in an exhibition entitled 'Het Goddelijke Nabij'.
This rare collection provides a fine impression of the diverse styles and techniques employed by Russian icon painters during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also encompasses a number of iconographic themes in varying versions. The collection comprises both drawings in the traditional orthodox style (see, for example, nos. 2, 3, 14, 24) and pieces influenced by western art (see, for example, nos. 9, 29, 32). A number of the drawings have also been dated (see nos. 4, 6, 16).
Various techniques were available for making outline drawings. One common practice, which guaranteed accuracy, was for icon painters to trace over the lines of an existing icon, using sugar water to which pigment had been added, then to smooth a piece of paper over the icon to obtain a mirror-image imprint. This they could work up in varying degrees of detail and use as a model for the icon painting. By tracing over the drawing with black ink and printing with the still wet ink onto a prepared panel, it was relatively simple for painters to use the outline as the basis for an icon, provided the desired dimensions were the same. They could also employ the same method to transfer the outline drawing to another piece of paper. Working up drawings gave artists an excellent opportunity to practice their skills and develop a feeling for the rhythm of icon painting. They often employed the colour red to represent the folds of clothes and light and shadow effects (see, for example, nos. 8, 18, 19); occasionally they added a further colour as well (see, for example, no. 24). The large, eighteenth-century drawing showing part of the Vita of St Nicholas (no. 17) is particularly interesting, as it is inscribed with various Slavic letters which indicate the desired colours for the final image.
The fact that such outline drawings were actually used by icon painters is shown by the many specimens in the collection with paint splatters, grease spots and creased corners. These works were considered valuable documents, of iconographic and artistic relevance, and so were carefully stored and passed on to subsequent generations. Nevertheless, the fragile nature of the medium means that relatively few of these original Russian drawings have been preserved.
All surviving pattern books (podlinnik) and individual sheets of outline drawings (prorisi) date from the period 1600-1917. Almost certainly they circulated before this time too. The best known Russian pattern book is that of the famous Stroganov family, which must have been compiled around 1600; the first printed version of this book was published in Moscow in the late nineteenth century. The largest collection of individual Russian outline drawings is to be found in the Historical Museum in Moscow.
List of Russian Podlinniks:- Filimonow, G.: Ikonenmalerhandbuch von Nowgorod, Moskow 1873
- Filimonow, G. : Vereinigtes Ikonenmalerhandbuch des 18. Jh., Moscow 1874
- Grigorow, D.A.: Russische Ikonenmalerhandbuch in "Notizen der Kaiserl. Russ. Archäol. Ges."Neue Serie, III, 1888, S. 21-167.
- Kurzes Ikonenmalerhandbuch von F?st Wjazenskij, St Petersburg 1885
- Pokrowskij, N.V.: Siiskij Ikonenmalerhandbuch, St Petersburg 1895-1898.
- Pokrowskij, N.V.: Ikonenmalerhandbuch, St Petersburg 1899
- Prochorow, W.: Ikonenmahlerhandbuch in "Altchristliches und Archäologie"1862-1864, 1872.
- Qurjanow, W.P.: Ikonografische Beschreibing der Heiligen aus dem 17.Jh. vom Nikolsloikloster, Moscow 1904 (alle Texte in russisch, bzw. (bei Faksimile) in Kirchenslavisch).
- Stroganowmalerhandbuch, Moscow 1869
