Age of Russian(?) Paintings

This is a heavy wood painting, probably Russian. Is it old or new(er)? It shows a holy figure holding what appears to be a head. There is some writing on the front.No signature. I bought it at an estate sale and they knew nothing about it other than the original owner had travelled to Russia. It measures 16x24". Also, the last photo is a beautiful watercolor of Mother and Child, purchased at the same sale. Any ideas about age?

 

First one should be St. John the Baptist.

 

Either I'm not transliterating it correctly or IMTranslator is having trouble working out of context. Thinks I'm giving it the Macedonian for 'more broken'. Since the tradition for icon painters is to adhere to the style of their predecessors, hard to know about age based on look alone. Examples from many times here:

http://www.bai.org.uk/members-work-marcella-speadbury.php

 

The letter that looks like н has a diacritical mark above it, possibly an accent mark. That doesn't look like Russian (although maybe could be an old predecessor). The online alphabets I can find for modern Macedonian also don't show a letter like that. Google's Translate page also suggested Macedonian for that second word.

There are lots of languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet.

To me, the first of these looks like it's possibly an icon and the second one looks like a painting that was painted, but painted to look like an icon. (Doesn't mean they are but that's just how they look to me.)

What's on the Madonna's shoulder in the second one? Or is that a damaged area?

 

Maybe Bulgarian? I believe Bulgarian is closest to old Slavic.

 

Yeah, I didn't know what to do with that either. When I substituted another letter, Translator told me it now meant 'scratch'. 'Damage' the unifying idea.

Agree. When I was Googling around saw an Italian Madonna that was similar in resembling an Orthodox icon in style.

My best guess is that it is painted damage, a patch on her robe, indicating they were poor. Just me doing my imagery interpretation thing & maybe entirely off base.

 

It looks like a woman. John the Baptist is usually rather hairy and unkempt.

 

That was my first reaction too, but wasn't getting anything for a saint with a head on a platter. Both the attached & the detached head look to be the same person, which is consistent with one near the end of the article at the link I posted.

Iconographic depictions of St. Joanna do not seem to use this imagery & only other Biblical beheading I know is in the story of Judith*, who is not a saint.

I'm still completely open to another reading if we can find a good fit. J the B was just best I could do on short notice.

 

* And Judith didn't have a platter.

 

This gets my vote.

 

At first, I thought it was Catherine... but the head on a platter and reedy/skinny cross brought me round to John the Baptist...

But not a John the Baptist "style" with which I am familiar.

 

Poor Judith, had to carry Holofernes' head around without even a platter.

It could be an Orthodox saint we have never heard of. Maybe an imaginary one who evolved from a John the Baptist, like st Wilgefortis evolved from images of Christ on the cross in full dress.

 

Cephalophore

"A cephalophore (from the Greek for "head-carrier") is a saint who is generally depicted carrying their own head. In Christian art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading. Handling the halo in this circumstance offers a unique challenge for the artist; some put the halo where the head used to be, others have the saint carrying the halo along with the head, and some split the difference. Associated legends often tell of the saint standing and carrying his own head after the beheading."

There's a whole list of them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalophore#List_of_cephalophores

 

The ways of the East are mysterious to a girl who went to Methodist Sunday school.

Judith had a maid with her to schlep the head. The cameos are just self promotion.

 

It's a painted area to denote a repair to the robe, or possibly to denote a shiny area or reflection? Not sure

 

Maybe ...? No idea.

 

I like this idea... just noticed the head on the platter has a halo.

Going by just the names on the list, the majority of them appear to be male. There are some females, too.

 

This is indeed one of the standard representations of John the Baptist used in Orthodox iconography, though I can't say from which branch of the Orthodox Church, or what the specific imagery represents.
Versions of this image are fairly common:

 

There would be a word. There are coins & cameos with an image of Athena holding a figure of Victory in the palm of her hand that are Athena Nikephoros. The name Lucifer has the same root, light bearer.

I checked the names on the list that I recognized as female. Wiki is giving me the Roman tradition on the tales & iconography, so Orthodox could be different. What I noted was that, in Western depictions, they all seem to carry their head in their hands or, in one case, under the arm, not on a charger. In the West martyrs are conventionally shown carrying a palm frond; I don't know if the Eastern church does the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_of_Limoges

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeria_of_Milan

There are icons for a St. Valerie/Valeria/Kaleria, but no second head.

 

[Playing devil's advocate to keep thoughts flowing.] Yes, except John is usually shown as having a wild man look to him, unkempt beard & hair, wearing animal skin. OP figure does look more like a matron of means.

Maybe the same thing has happened with icons, or icon-like paintings not meant for serious devotional use, that happened over time with cameos. For a time they faithfully followed the conventions for depicting individuals & scenes established in antiquity & renewed with neoclassical art. Late in the craze you find ones with scrambled attributes, wings where they don't belong, etc. Perhaps this is Valeria telling her story in the manner of the Baptist.