Restorers find priceless icon
Conservators cleaning a Byzantine-era religious icon in a small church in the Peloponnese have discovered a priceless and previously unknown work by one of the country’s foremost 17th century painters, Emmanuel Tzanes, the Culture Ministry said yesterday. The removal of the icon’s elaborate silver cover, which had obscured most of its surface, revealed the title of St John the Baptist, identifying the painting’s central figure, as well as Tzanes’s signature and the date 1646. «This important icon is in immediate need of restoration,» Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis said, adding that special security measures would be implemented at the church in the small town of Kranidi, in the eastern Peloponnese, to protect it. The icon, measuring 123 by 103 centimeters, portrays John the Baptist holding a cross-topped scepter with scenes from the saint’s life depicted along its borders.
