Images of St George the Victorious in Old Rus. In Memory of Tatyana Vilinbakhova

This exhibition is dedicated to late Russian Museum staff member Tatyana Borisovna Vilinbakhova. Having joined the Russian Museum team in 1975, Tatyana Borisovna took charge of the Department of Old Russian Art at the museum in 1981. From that time on, all of the department’s research efforts and exhibition events proceeded under her stewardship, bearing the mark of her creative and at the same time responsible approach to museum business. The focus of Vilinbakhova’s scholarly interest was Novgorod icon painting of the 15th and early-16th centuries, as well as the work of the “Stroganov Masters” during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Some of the more notable exhibition projects implemented under Tatyana Vilinbakhova’s tutelage were From the Collections of Nikolai Likhachev, Russian Antiquities, and Art of the Stroganov Masters. This exhibition reflects on a theme that had long been a focus of Vilinbakhova’s research.

The exhibition spotlights old Russian icons, wooden sculptures, personal sacred objects and jewellery created in various places and at different times, yet sharing the same theme. St George is one of the most highly venerated saints in Russia. His image is viewed as symbolic of Russian history. “St George and the Dragon” is the most frequently recurring subject in the Russian St George iconography. Despite their great number, no two St George icons are completely alike. Each rendition of St George’s image draws on its own sources and depicts different scenes from the saint’s hagiography. What they all have in common is the consummate mastery of the medieval Russian artists who painted them.