Icons for SALE

The Virgin Eleusa.  Click the icon for bigger view

1874; painted by Stanislav Dospevski. Samokov school, tempera on wood; 29.5 x 21 cm, National History Museum, invt. No 29903.

 The icon has a decorated frame. An inscription at the bottom indicates the author and year of depiction.

The rendering does not deviate from the universal iconography of the Virgin Eleusa - the Infant Christ pressing his cheek to the Virgin's face in a caress. The Virgin Mary is dressed in a blue himation and a wine-colored maphorion with gilt highlights, used as a building undertone - a typical technique in icon painting, much preferred by the Samokov masters. The star-like nimbus around her head and the decoration of the background are reminiscent of Russian icon painting.

Stanislav Dospevski studied at the Moscow Art School and at the Imperial Academy of Art in Saint Petersburg and was influenced by the Russian school. One of the first masters of secular portraits in Bulgaria, he applied the techniques of that art to icon-painting, applying oil for the finishing touches of the faces over the traditional tempera. This is the reason why his figures have volume, the form is crisp but the beautiful rosy faces lack the expressiveness of the austere classical icon. Stanislav Dospevski painted icons in the Lopoushna Monastery, Pazardjik region, in Novo Selo near Shtip, in Sevlievo, in the monasteries of Preobrazhenie and Batkoun, in St. Nedelya Church in Sofia (to the order of Ivan Denkooglu), and in the Lovech church of St. Nedelya - to the order of the Bishop of Lovech Dionisius.

Stanislav Dospevski was the firstborn of Dimiter Zograph's sons. Following the April Uprising he was sent to the prison of Constantinople, where he died in 1877.